


Fireball Chronicles

by lovesdaryl



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Negan violence implied, Rating for Language, childhood abuse implied, domestic abuse implied
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-12 04:43:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 73,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10482330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesdaryl/pseuds/lovesdaryl
Summary: Carol, the warrior, and Daryl, the mage, meet Glenn and save him from a band of thugs on the road. They find out later that the thugs are following them and will not shy back from violence. Fantasy AU. Further characters will appear later and will be added as they come in.





	1. Chapter 1

The juggler froze as the band of marauders stepped out from behind the cart blocking the path, one of them wielding a sword, another holding a slavering dog on a straining leash.

„So,“ their leader, a tall, bearded man with black hair in a pony tail, asked him, sauntering toward him and folding back his flowing, calf-length coat to show off a dagger in a sheath at his hip and a sword in a shabby leather scabbard, „how successful have your recent shows been?“

Glenn took one step back for every single one that the bearded robber took toward him, shaking his head. „Not good,“ he burst out, his eyes wide. He was not carrying any weapons - the bundle on his back contained half a dozen colored scarves, a pack of cards, five dice, a top hat, and sets of leather balls, small cones - plus his most prized possession: Six glass plates and cups that he spun and balanced on slender sticks the length of his arm at the end of each performance. He had inherited these from his father, and as the art of making them had been lost in the upheaval following the wars, they were irreplaceable. “I haven’t had many people watching, and they couldn’t afford to pay more than a few coppers, if that.”

„Why don’t you hand over your purse and let me check that?“ the robber asked, still sounding respectful and friendly. He held out one hand with a beckoning gesture.

Glenn reached for the small cloth pouch in which he kept his money, tied to his belt, but the robber shook his head. „Why don’t you show me your bundle instead?“ he suggested, his smile turning malicious. Clearly, he meant to take not only Glenn’s money, but any valuable items in his possession.

The juggler thought of his glassware, each piece separately wrapped in soft cloth for safekeeping, and took another step backward. If the robber found his glass plates and cups, he would either steal or destroy them - and Glenn couldn’t have said which would be more heartbreaking.

Suddenly he hit an obstacle with his back. With his eyes riveted to the leader of the band of robbers, he had never noticed that one of them had circled behind him and was now keeping him from retreating further. The leader chuckled softly and took another step forward. „No way out, hm?“ he asked, his eyes hard and cold as steel. „Hand over your pack and you might get to live, boy.“

A ball of fire hit the ground next to Glenn’s feet, exploding in a cloud of dust and dirt. The man behind him yelped and apparently jumped to the side, even as several of the other robbers dove into cover behind the cart with shouts of fear and terror. The leader frowned, looking around them.

The bushes to Glenn’s right, just off the path, started rustling, and then a man with dark blond hair reaching down to his shoulders stepped out of the underbrush. A crossbow was slung over his shoulder and he was wearing faded red robes which looked frayed at the bottom. His piercing blue eyes held Glenn’s brown ones as he slowly lifted his right hand. A ball of fire sprang into life on his palm.

The lead robber turned pale and took a step back from Glenn, gesturing for his men to follow. „Never mind,“ he gasped. „You probably don’t own anything worth stealing, anyway.“ He started running down the road, followed by his men and looking back two or three times to make sure nobody was following them.

Glenn breathed a sigh of relief. A magic user might be able to appreciate the value of his glass plates and cups and not take them from him - they were the main attraction of his show, and without them, he might no longer be able to make a living without resorting to begging.

Tearing his eyes from the retreating robbers, Glenn looked back at the magic user who was just stepping onto the road, looking over his shoulder into the woods. “Now I just hope -” Glenn began, then fell silent when another figure stepped out of the bushes.

A woman. Short, graying hair. Blue eyes, nearly as bright as those of the magic user.

Glenn swallowed.


	2. Chapter 2

The woman was dressed in pants with numerous pockets, sturdy boots reaching up to her calves, and a warm jacket against the drizzle and the cold over what looked like several layers of shirts in various shades of white and red. Glenn’s eyes widened when he saw a sword in a scabbard hanging from her waist and a leather helmet riding on top of the pack on her back. She looked shorter and slighter than the mage, who seemed to have exceptionally wide shoulders, yet apparently she was the one in charge of physical attack and defense.

A male mage and a female warrior, maybe even a knight, although he saw no markings of any affiliation on either of them. This should be interesting.

.-.

“Uh … I hope you’re not planning to rob me as well?” the dark-haired young man began again, looking from him to Carol and back again. His hands were still raised in a defensive gesture, his whole posture screaming defense rather than attack.

Daryl whispered a single word and the ball of fire on his right hand died into nothing. “Rob?” he asked, his voice hoarse. They’d been sleeping rough and he was coming down with some bug that had had him coughing and clearing his throat since the day before. He hoped to get them employed for the coming winter soon, maybe find them spots on some small lord’s warband defending his village, so they’d have a roof over their heads again for a change - as well as taking care of payment and food, both of which had been a problem recently with the minor jobs they had found over the past few weeks.

“What would you own that’s worth stealin’?” he sneered, holding out a hand to help Carol up onto the elevated cobblestone road. “The day I look like a thief, I’ll turn  _ m’self  _ in,” he added, pissed.

Turning his attention from Carol back to the young man staring at the two of them, he looked him up and down in an attempt to get a reading of him. “They hurt ya?” he asked, stepping up to him. “They take anythin’ yet? Anythin’ worth fightin’ for to get back?”

Glenn shook his head, intimidated by the man’s size and unusually aggressive behavior. Normally, mages tended to stay in the background, be more soft-spoken types, and let others do their talking. Then again, normally mages didn’t carry crossbows and have shoulders wider than that robber king that this mage had scared off even before the warrior had shown up next to him. “I’m just a juggler, I really don’t own anything of value, just my equipment,” he admitted, hefting the pouch at his belt that contained the half dozen coppers he had managed to save.

The mage nodded to himself as if this was good news - and in a way, Glenn thought, it was. He didn’t doubt that this guy would have run after the robbers to get back what they had stolen if his answer had been different.

Pinning the juggler down with his eyes, Daryl held out his right hand, and was amused when the younger man looked at it doubtfully for a few seconds as if expecting his fireball to burst into life again the moment he grasped it. “Daryl Dixon,” he introduced himself once the juggler made up his mind to take his proffered hand.

“Glenn Rhee,” the juggler nodded back, then looked at the warrior standing quietly next to the mage, watching their exchange.

She acknowledged him with a curt nod, then held out a hand protected by a fingerless glove made of supple leather that felt soft against Glenn’s skin when he shook it. “Carol,” she stated, not giving him a last name. Maybe she had left a warband without permission, Glenn thought. Or maybe she was the mage’s wife, and just assumed that he would guess that her last name was the same as his.

Looking at the very businesslike get-up of the two people facing him, Glenn firmly told himself that her last name was none of his business.


	3. Chapter 3

Looking up at the overcast sky, Daryl stepped up to the overturned cart that had stopped Glenn and let his pack slip off the shoulder not weighed down by his crossbow and onto the underside of the driver’s bench. Opening the drawstring, he took out a roll of cured leather, carefully tied with a rawhide string, and proceeded to untie and unroll it.

Glenn gasped when he saw that the bundle contained at least half a dozen maps, each of them drawn, it seemed, on parchment or paper, the one on top of the stack even illuminated in green, brown and blue to mark plains, mountains, rivers and lakes - and the sea far off to the north.

Daryl looked up at the sound, squinting at the juggler threateningly, before turning his attention back to the map, protected against the rain by the cart. Nobody in their right mind would expose a map such as this - or any other in his bundle - to the elements. Usually, treasures such as these were only unpacked under a roof - but they hadn’t had a roof over their heads in weeks, so he had unpacked them in caves, under Carol’s jacket, and even inside his backpack.

A look at the sky would tell him the direction the road ran, but only a look at his map could tell him which way the nearest village lay, so he had to risk it. If he’d had to hazard a guess, though, he would have said that the thugs that had turned over the cart to waylay the travellers on this road would not have fled  _ toward  _ a village but rather  _ away  _ from it.

Studying his map, he saw that his guess had been correct - the robbers had run off to his right, while the closest village lay off to their left, maybe a two hour march from where they were standing. Glancing at the sky he estimated that they would be able to make it there by nightfall.

“Two hours, give or take,” he stated, glancing at Carol over his shoulder as he packed his maps again. “We take him along?” Daryl tilted his head toward Glenn, leaving the decision up to her. The juggler was not carrying any weapons that Daryl could see, so defending him was entirely up to the two of them and he didn’t want to just dump responsibility for an additional person on her without her approval - he knew that she took her responsibilities very seriously.

Fascinated, Glenn watched as the warrior’s eyes found the mage’s and held them for nearly a minute as the man swung his backpack onto his free shoulder. Clearly, there was some sort of silent, wordless communication going on between the two of them. There were no gestures that he could see, not even the twitching of a facial muscle, but at the end of the exchange, the red-robed mage nodded at him even as Carol’s eyes also came to rest on Glenn.

“If you want to, you can accompany us to Darkshore. She’s really good with that sword, and I know a spell or two, so you wouldn’t have any more problems with scum tryin’ ta rob ya,” Daryl offered. Adjusting the crossbow on his shoulder, he stepped back off the road again and reached behind one of the trees that the two of them had hidden behind. His hand came back out with a sturdy staff still half covered in bark. Its top had been carved into a spiral tip that was pointed and vicious enough for the staff to also double as an additional weapon.

These two looked both fierce and trustworthy, Glenn thought, and being with them would certainly be safer than traveling alone. Nodding enthusiastically, he held out a hand to the mage to help him up onto the road again, but Daryl shook his head, using his staff instead. Once they stood face to face again, Glenn smiled first at the warrior and then at the mage. “I’d appreciate your protection, thanks for your offer!”

With a wordless glare, Daryl set out toward Darkshore, with Carol at his side instantly, and Glenn rushed to follow.


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl’s prediction had been correct - they reached Darkshore just as dusk was coming in, making shadows even darker and tinting their surroundings. He’d been here once before, years ago, and from what he remembered, it hadn’t changed much. The village consisted of roughly two dozen houses and boasted a smithy, a baker’s shop, and an inn.

It was the inn he made for, hoping to get an affordable room there that he would be able to hold against attackers with Carol’s help. He had no idea if Negan’s men were still after them, but didn’t want to risk it, although they had been avoiding roads and settlements whenever possible. If the only room on offer was on the ground floor, they would have to push on even with night coming on as a window, even a shuttered one, surely wouldn’t stop those guys.

They were really far too determined to look inside him to be careless.

Daryl used his staff to knock on the solid wooden door of “Lori’s Inn” and then let himself in. A good fire was going in the hearth that had the guest room blistering hot, which was a welcome change after a day spent in freezing rain. A few early customers were sitting along the bar and at the handful of tables in small groups, and every head turned in Daryl’s direction as they all ogled him before minding their own business once more. 

A woman with long hair done up in intricate braids was standing behind the bar, wiping suds off a beer stein before drying it off with a dish towel.

Nodding a wordless greeting, Daryl stepped into the inn and held the door for Carol and Glenn to follow. Glenn gave him a prompting look and he allowed the juggler to close the door behind them while he himself set out for the bar and addressed the woman behind it.

“Good even, Innkeep,” he began. “Do you happen to have a free room for us on the upper floor that you’d be willing to rent out for the night?”

Looking at his robes and staff, she gave him a cautious smile. “Good even, Mage,” she replied. “Yes, I do, but I will need to see your payment first. Also, food will be extra.”

This was the usual arrangement, so Daryl was not surprised by her answer. Reaching inside his robes, he took three worn coins out of the pouch tied to his belt, right next to the one containing his solid spell components. When the coins slid from his right hand onto the bar with a tinkling sound, several heads turned their way once more, which made him deeply uncomfortable. These days, in the world they were living in, Negan’s men were not the only danger out there.

Maybe he should be keeping watch tonight, even in a locked room. 

“Will this be enough for the three of us?”

The woman nodded and reached out for the money, but he quickly slid one of the coins back toward himself with his middle finger. “I’ll keep this one for now,” he stated, and his tone of voice suggested that this was not something he would negotiate. “If we’re still alive come morning, and if no thugs have come to rob us in our sleep, you’ll get this last one as well.”

A deeply annoyed look on her face, the woman sighed. “You do whatever pleases you,” she shot back. “But I will see that money tomorrow or I will call in the sheriff from Oakridge, so help me Nico!”

Daryl shrugged, indifferent to her obvious anger. “Yeah, whatever, no need to do that ‘cos you will get your money tomorrow,” he brushed her off. “What’s in your kitchen? We’d like some hot food now and for breakfast.”

.-.

Although he was as tired as a door post, he spent the night standing at the single window of their upstairs room, peering through the slats of the shutter which allowed him a limited view of the area in front of the inn’s door. He didn’t trust anyone these days - not for himself, he really didn’t care one way or the other if he died, but for Carol. Had he seen so much as a single shadow moving toward the inn, they would have been out of there lightning fast, never to return - Daryl didn’t forget, and he rarely forgave, especially if others put someone in harm’s way that he … cared about.

But the night remained quiet. Nothing moved except for the shadows of the naked tree branches reaching out over the dirt track road, and he noticed nothing out of place or untoward when they had breakfast and set out on their journey again the following morning. The three of them said their good-byes to Lori, the inkeep, thanking her for the comfortable beds and the tasty food as Daryl was paying her, and left Darkshore without looking back.


	5. Chapter 5

Dwight stared at the overturned cart and at the mess of footprints on the muddy ground. Obviously, with the rain of the past few days turning the roads into slippery trails of soft clay with the occasional rock thrown in, there was a certain probability of carts hitting a hidden rock and getting thrown off balance, with the cart landing on its side, sometimes with one or two broken wheels. 

They would then lie there until the weather was good enough again for the owner to obtain help in the nearest village - provided the nearest village had people and equipment to help with turning it upright again and having the broken wheels repaired or replaced at the site of the accident. If the cart had ended up several hours’ travel from the closest settlement, it could take the teamster and the passengers days to just get there, weighed down by their luggage and slowed down by bad weather.

There were, however, no rocks to be found anywhere near the cart in this case. The deep ruts it would have traveled in looked smooth and straight as far as the eye could see, even at the site of the accident - in fact, there was no clue as to why this would have happened at all. Dwight, always both curious and mistrustful, had even knelt down to probe the soggy ground with his fingers to check - and had encountered nothing whatsoever that would have explained the wreck or the broken wheel.

And while there were lots of footprints around the cart, none of them looked as if they had been caused by the teamster and the passengers getting or falling off it and unloading their luggage after the accident. Instead, several sets of clean footprints were leading both up to and away from the cart, coming from and going in the same direction, one set was coming toward the cart from the other direction, and a set of two seemed to come out of the woods on the side of the road.

And this set, along with the lone one leading up to the cart separately, wasn’t going anywhere, which was extremely curious.

Curious circumstances always aroused Dwight’s interest.

Catching the eyes of the three other members of his team, he wordlessly signaled for each of them to start inspecting one aspect of this whole setup - the cart itself, the group of footprints leading up to and away from it, the single set of prints coming toward it. The footprints coming up from the forest were his to explore, for they were the most interesting feature of this situation.

Ever since the slaves they had been planning to sell at Fairhaven had been freed during that godawful thunderstorm, they had been following the two people, a mage and a warrior, that had been spotted near the camp that night. They weren’t quite sure if it was two men or a man and a short-haired woman who had stolen their property, and they didn’t really care. Since they were not going to get back their slaves, they at least wanted to make those two pay for their loss, in whatever way possible.

Two sets of footprints coming out of the forest, and disappearing again into it after paralleling the road for a bit, right on the edge of the forest.

Interesting.

Once he felt they had found everything of interest, Dwight had the cart set on fire, leaving nothing behind.

.-.

The weather remained unreliable. The mage and the warrior kept talking quietly among themselves, occasionally looking back at Glenn to include him in their conversation, but most of the time he was plodding along behind them, his head lowered to avoid the intermittent showers and drizzles, following without any real idea of where he was going.

When setting out at the inn that morning, the mage, Daryl, had said that they were on their way to the province of Fairhaven where they were going to try to enter the service of a minor lord and join his warband over the coming winter. Visions of a position as entertainer at a small court had been dancing through Glenn’s head ever since.

He was good, and he knew it. When there was an audience to play to, he always made a good cut, enough for food, lodging, and new clothes or shoes when he needed them. He was successful at what he did - not famous in the sense that people all over the continent knew his name, but famous enough for news of him arriving soon would travel ahead of him at least in summer, when people were, in fact, traveling,  so he’d usually have a sizeable audience once he started scheduling performances .

It had been quite some time since he had held a position at court, and having one over the winter obviously had distinct advantages. He began to daydream about his own straw-covered pallet in a hall, about a kitchen that he could go to all day long to charm the cook into letting him have a few morsels on the side,  about a warm fire in the large hearth of a full hall expecting his performance - all very tempting . He couldn’t wait to reach Fairhaven.

When they took a short break around midday, with the sun dimly visible behind the clouds, the mage and the warrior shared some food and a skin of sour red wine with him. Glenn watched them as they interacted with each other seamlessly, without words or any overt signals. They had to have been traveling together for a long time, he reckoned, for them to be so used to each other’s mannerisms that they knew to react to certain actions before they even took place. The warrior went out of her way to give him friendly looks and include him in their spoken conversation, but the mage kept glaring at him , making Glenn feel highly unwelcome in their group even though he had invited Glenn to come along.

Once they had eaten, the mage started inspecting the palm of his right hand, and the woman leaned over to have a look at it as well.

“You didn’t hold it for very long,” she cryptically pointed out, gently grasping his large, short-fingered hand with her slender ones and running a fingertip over his palm. Glenn noticed the mage flinching briefly at her touch before he managed to control his reaction. The woman remained perfectly still for the two heartbeats it took the man to deal with his hand being held by her.

“Don’t matter how long it was,” Daryl growled. “There’s always payment, and for fire spells, it’s a burn.”

He clumsily opened the drawstring of his backpack with his free hand and pulled out a small, seemingly handmade clay jar that was sealed with a bit of waxed paper and some twine, untied the knot and pried off the paper while the woman pushed back his wide red sleeve to inspect his forearm.

“Nah, the arm don’t hurt, ‘s just my palm, and it’s not really bad, either - it didn’t take any skin and don’t reach up higher than the wrist,” Daryl mumbled as he dipped the first two fingers of his left hand into the jar.

The gray-haired  lady warrior, who was now dressed in tooled and oiled leather armor that she had put on at the inn that morning, leaving her pack half empty, suddenly pulled the mage’s hand in close and cradled it against her chest with both of hers, lowering her head to briefly rest her forehead on his curled fingers.

To Glenn, the gesture looked infinitely intimate.

“Can’t we just … settle down and you only use spells for growing crops?” Her voice sounded desperate. “One day we’ll be fighting for a lord who doesn’t mind losing his mages, who will make you go too far – and I don’t want to lose you to your own spells.”

All of this was news to Glenn. He had been wondering about why even powerful lords had regular armies in addition to just a handful of mages, and why the mages didn’t just wipe out all of their enemies’ forces in one swipe, and this seemed to be the explanation he had been searching for. He looked up from inspecting his carefully wrapped plates in his pack, to find the woman, Carol, already staring at him, her eyes full of mistrust.

“You … pay for casting spells?”

Now Daryl’s head came up as well and his fierce blue eyes met Glenn’s black ones as he pulled back his hand and carefully rubbed the pea-sized globule of ointment from the jar onto his palm, wincing slightly.

“Yeah, based on the nature of the spell, and whether or not it was cast with intent to harm. For fire spells, I get burns – the longer or the more powerful the spell, the more serious the burn. For water spells, I get dehydrated in proportion to the amount of water I use for the spell. And for cuts –“ He fell silent, and both his own face and that of Carol went pale and still as he sealed his jar again and safely stored it away in his backpack once more.

Abruptly, he set the tip of his staff on the ground and used it to pull himself to his feet, his eyes hard and cold now, hiding something that he didn’t want Glenn to see.

“Let’s move on,” he mumbled. “I want to reach the cave at the bridge by nightfall.”

Nobody said a word as they set out again, within sight of the road to Fairhaven, but hidden by the forest.

.-.

Deftly gathering her long, shimmering hair into a pony tail, Lori used her elbow to open the door of one of the two rooms she had rented out the night before. As she entered it, she noted that nothing at all indicated that people had spent the night here. The solitary chair had been set in front of the window, but that was it - the bedding seemed untouched, and the tall pitcher of water on the wash stand was as full as she had left it the morning before. The bowl in the stand was dry, the towel neatly folded and hung over the stand’s rail.

The two people who had used this room, the mage and the warrior, might as well have slept standing upright, for all the disturbance they had caused to the room. Neat guests that didn’t leave utter chaos in their wake were always a pleasure, but this was … uncanny, almost. It seemed as if they had never been here at all - save for the chair in front of the window, and the slats of the shutters, that had been adjusted to let in a little light, or else allow someone sitting inside to look out.

On sheer principle, Lori changed the sheets, water, and towel, and put the chair back in its place. Once the room was truly untouched again, she called for Carl, her fourteen year old son, to come up and sweep the floor, nightstand, and table while she cleaned the second room that had been taken the night before - the one in which the juggler had slept.

As a final touch, she opened the window and reached out to open the shutters and fix them in place against the wall outside. While she was adjusting the fixture of the right shutter, she allowed her eyes to roam over the countryside, enjoying the view the upper floor of her inn afforded her.

Instantly, her eyes were drawn to a column of black, sooty smoke rising maybe a two hour march away, apparently from something burning in the road leading toward Darkshore. She was still wondering what might be on fire on their main road out there when her son came in from the landing, prompting her to rush out and start in on the second room she’d have to do.

She only remembered the column of smoke when visitors showed up on her door step.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> graphic depictions of violence, character death

They arrived at the cave in the foothills that Daryl had mentioned just before nightfall, the river and the bridge leading across it already lost to darkness, with the shadows inside already thick enough to make the cave’s rear end disappear into them. Apparently the cave was often used as a way station by travelers, for the floor in one corner was covered in dry rushes and sand.

Once again, Glenn witnessed the silent, covert communication between his traveling companions as they spread their bedrolls on the ground, side by side, and Daryl set out to get water while Carol began searching for kindling in the immediate vicinity of the cave, all without a single word being spoken. He did feel isolated by their behavior, but once they were all seated around a small fire by the mouth of the cave, shielded from the wind as well as unfriendly eyes by a low earthen wall, and started sharing and trading food again, his sense of loneliness abated and he began to feel more welcome among them.

”Have you ever been to Fairhaven?” 

Carol’s voice was soft in the darkness as she looked up at Glenn, most of her face shrouded in shadows with only the tip of her nose and her cheeks highlighted by the dying embers of their fire. Her graying hair looked like a ghostly reddish halo in the night.

”I’ve never been this far south and east,” Glenn admitted, shaking his head. ”My family lives up near the northern mountain ridges. We have a farm there, so there’s work to be done nearly all year round, and my parents have never left it since I was born three years after my parents said their vows.” He looked into the glowing heart of the fire, lost in memories.

His childhood on his family’s farm had been filled with hard work, but happy, surrounded by doting parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. He had been the first child of three, awaited with great longing by a couple that had been on the verge of despair when first one year and then another passed without the birth of the child they were hoping for. 

Once Glenn had arrived, though, the curse that seemed to have rested upon their house had apparently been lifted, for his younger sister and youngest brother had been born in the two years following his own arrival, making his parents, and especially his mother, happy beyond their wildest dreams.

One winter, three years back, a traveling entertainer had been surprised by the onset of winter while staying at their farm overnight, and Glenn, who had always itched to see more of the world, had been fascinated not just by his skills but also by his stories of far-off countries and foreign shores. In his youthful enthusiasm, he hadn’t noticed his mother looking away every time he had laughed aloud at a joke or a particularly daring show of artistry, or her eyes turning sad whenever the entertainer had taught Glenn one of his tricks.

By the time spring came around and the roads were open again so the entertainer could leave, his family had been prepared for Glenn’s wish to go with him, and unlike his younger siblings who had not made a secret of their anger, his mother had hidden her sadness from him so her son might leave with a joyous heart. He wrote home several times a year, and checked on the mailboxes he had in all major cities he had ever been to - but now he was discovering new territory, and hadn’t heard from his family in four months.

Daryl, sniffling and coughing softly every so often, had taken care of his singed right palm and then taken to his bed while Glenn had been telling his story. Unlike his two companions, Daryl had made himself a mug of hot tea to go with his dinner, its fragrant smell filling the entire cave, but the cold he’d been fighting for days now seemed to be winning.

When Glenn’s story was finished, he raised his eyes to look outside into the dusk. With the sun almost fully below the far-off mountain ridge now, the sky looked like an open wound slashed into the fabric of creation, the vivid bands of light a stark contrast against the clouds that still covered the sky almost as far as the eye could see.

”What’s that?” Glenn asked Carol, pointing at a fluffy-looking vertical line back in the direction they had come from.

”That was a fire.” Carol barely spared the white column of smoke a brief glance before craning her neck to check on Daryl who had already fallen asleep. ”It’s no longer black, so it’s not a danger anymore. White smoke means that it’s no longer burning.”

Glenn’s eyebrows rose as he filed away this piece of information. In the last dim light of their fire he watched Carol tug Daryl’s blanket more tightly around his wide shoulders before bedding down herself, while he thought back to the inn at which they’d spent the night before, worry gnawing at him.

”Could that be -” He stopped himself. What were the chances, really? He knew one place in this area. Did he really have to worry about this one place burning down right after they had stayed there?

Carol looked up at him from her blankets, her expression impatient, clearly prompting him to continue.

”Could that be … Darkshore? The inn?”

”Too far away.” Her voice was firm, her tone brooking no argument. ”It could be the cart on the road. Darkshore, and even just the inn, would take longer to burn.”

The matter-of-factness of her statement shocked him, but then he reminded himself that she and the mage had seen actual battles, maybe even a war that went beyond skirmishes between rivaling lords. This seeming coldness came from experience, and he had seen the way in which she treated the mage. He could believe anything about her - but this woman wasn’t cold or heartless. 

He felt safe with her. And despite the bristly way in which the mage continued to treat him, he also felt safe with him. After all, they had stepped in to defend a perfect stranger against a band of marauders when they could have just remained hidden and minded their own business.

Once he spread his own bedroll to lie down, Glenn Rhee slept soundly in the company of the warrior and the mage.

.-.

She was sweeping the main room downstairs when she heard the sounds of a group of people approaching the front door. Expecting a polite knock, she put aside her broom and set out for the door when there was a loud, cracking noise as of a nailed boot hitting wood, followed by the door nearly coming off its hinges as it was kicked open. Lori just about managed to stay clear of it, but not of the rough hand grabbing her arm and pulling her in close to the man who was the first to come in.

“Do you have two people staying here? One’s a neutral mage, the other’s a warrior or a knight.”

His stale breath was hot on her face as he leaned in closely enough for his spittle to hit her face. His lanky, dirty blond hair tickled her ear and she could feel her skin crawling with revulsion. Behind him, three other men crowded in through the open door and began searching the main room, pulling out drawers and dropping them, stomping on the contents, swiping glasses off the bar counter where she had been lining them up for cleaning.

Of course she remembered the group that had stayed with her. And of course she realized that two of them had to be the people this man was looking for. But there was really no reason for her to tell him that they had been here - he was no representative of any authority, legal, civilian, or otherwise, and his behavior toward her was clearly a warning of how he would treat these two once he had found them. She looked at him defiantly.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

His hand whipped across her face, fast as a striking snake, throwing back her head so hard that her neck felt sprained. Loose strands of black hair fanned out over her face, obscuring her vision.

“I will ask you one last time. Do you have a neutral mage and a warrior staying here? Will you tell us, or do we have to search this place, from here up to the rafters?”

There was no mistaking the threat in his voice, and with devastating certainty she knew that, whatever she said next, whatever she did from here on out, she would not be getting out of this. So she did what she had to do.

“I am telling you,” she spoke up, loudly this time, making her voice sound frightened, which didn’t really take any effort - she was frightened, but no longer for herself. Making her voice  _ carry _ , so he would notice, and use the back door through the kitchen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I live here with my son, but he’s not at home, and anyway, he’s not a mage of any color. He left for Fairhaven in the first light of dawn. I am alone.”

She prayed to all the gods, good, neutral, and even evil ones, that Carl had heard her and wouldn’t make any rash decisions. These men were very bad news, and she wanted them nowhere near her boy.

“I don’t care about you, or your son, or your whoring husband,” the man threatening her growled, leaning in close again so she could smell his rotting teeth, and the stink both of his unwashed body and his unkempt clothes. “I want that mage, and that warrior, and I will get them.”

As if by magic, a knife appeared in his hand, its tip razor sharp, the rest of its edge serrated to rip flesh and cause injuries that would bleed long and copiously while at the same time causing debilitating pain. He set the tip against the hollow at the base of her neck, exerting just enough pressure to lacerate the skin. She could feel a single drop of warm blood run down her chest and into her cleavage.

_ Please be gone, Carl. Please, my baby, by all that is holy, don’t be here any longer. _

It was her last coherent thought.

.-.

He had known something was wrong the moment he’d heard the inn’s front door getting kicked open and crashing into the wall. This was not the way ordinary guests usually entered.

His fear had been fueled further at the cruel voice of the man talking to his mother, and the sounds of destruction coming from the inn’s main room as the men went on a rampage, throwing about everything that wasn’t nailed down.

And his blood had run cold at the sound of his mother’s frightened voice subtly telling him what to do once the man talking to her got down to business, hitting her and then threatening her again.

Carl had grown up here. This inn was the only home he had known. Ever since his father had died in the last war, his mother had been his only family. He had known no other life, but the way his mother’s voice sounded as she told these men that he had been on the way to Fairhaven since dawn told him that it was coming to an end.

He hated having to do this, but he knew their chances if he were to stay. They had both listened to horrifying accounts of isolated homesteads being raided and burned to the ground, and he had no doubt that these people were not going to hold back. After all, his mother couldn’t produce the trio that had stayed in the upstairs rooms since they had truly left after just one night, and the men wrecking the main guest room would want to vent their anger.

And so Carl grabbed his coat and empty backpack, put on his boots, and quietly slipped out the back door through the kitchen, careful not to leave a trail as he swiftly disappeared into the forest. As he had no idea how many men were in this group, maybe hiding in the woods around the inn, he lay low, keeping a tiny shred of hope alive.

But in the end, after his mother’s screams had died down, four men came out of the inn after breaking all of its windows, throwing out furniture, glassware, and bedding, and they hadn’t gone far on the road to Fairhaven when Carl heard the crackling of the fire inside and saw the flames licking up - but no sound from his mother.

His mother was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

Carol looked out over the low, wooded foothills, enjoying the silence.

Bands of translucent mist were still hanging over the forest, shimmering in the early morning light. Even the birds were only just waking up, with an isolated swirl of song here and there as the shadows slowly lifted, ushering the denizens of night back to their lairs and coaxing out those thriving in daylight. Far off toward the north she spotted what she believed was one of the northern wyrms returning to its den in the mountains to the northwest and wondered what had driven it this far south.

The air was cold and wet, with the sun not yet over the horizon. Sitting right on the edge of the cave in which they had spent the night, protected by the leafy vines hanging down over the entrance as well as the low earthen wall, and warmed by the embers of their fire, Carol could feel the bite in the air outside in the open, but not keenly enough for her to be uncomfortable from it. It was just enough to help her rally herself so she could observe the landscape laid out before her to see if anyone was following them - or even just using the same road - who might pose a threat. The black column of smoke rising now from where she had seen a fire burning while she’d been on watch during the night didn’t bode well and she wanted to be prepared.

The sun came up, lighting up the sky and burning away the wisps of mist, the feathery clouds in the sky, and the water dripping off the leaves and needles of the surrounding forest. Carol listened to the animal life coming awake around her, to the warbling of the brook where Daryl had gotten their water the previous evening, and to the rustling and mumbling of her two companions reluctantly joining the land of the waking again.

Daryl’s phlegmy coughing had ruptured the stillness of the night several times over the past few hours, and with his skin feeling ever hotter to her touch she didn’t expect them to move on today. While she was more than capable of defending just the two of them with her skills when Daryl was able to mind himself, she doubted she would be able to do the same for all three of them with Daryl weakened by a fever and probably unable to cast any spells, and their most recent traveling companion apparently unable to fend for himself at all. 

Although it was a nuisance that they would have to stay here for now, she assumed they could have done worse in terms of accomodation. Daryl’s cold could have caught them out on the open road, while here, at least, they were protected from the elements and had a reasonably defendable position on high ground if any hostile groups should show up.

Carol smiled slightly as she listened to the juggler’s attempt to sneak up on her after untangling himself from his bedding. Daryl had gone conspicuously silent in the background, and she assumed that he had tensed up under his blankets with a spell on his lips. When Glenn’s fingertips came to rest on her shoulder, she didn’t flinch - which he had probably expected - but smiled up at him amicably.

“The next time you touch me without my express permission, or try to sneak up on me for a little scare, I will take that hand off with my sword,” she informed him, the smile never leaving her face, her eyes hard. The juggler’s eyes widened. Her hand was resting on her weapon’s hilt.

“I … I … Ugh … Really, I didn’t mean to scare you, it was all in good fun!” he protested, raising both hands in the air.

“Oh,  you certainly didn’t scare me, and  I know it was, that’s why you get this one warning.” She rose from the stone she had been sitting on. “I’ll get water for Daryl’s tea. He’ll need more of it, his cold is getting worse. You stay here and stand watch until I’m back.” With a glance into the back of the cave, she added, “Don’t rely on him to help. He hasn’t done any spellwork since the day before yesterday, and he’s weakened by his cold.  Casting spells is exhausting work.  He won’t be able to do much if we’re attacked.”

Glenn watched silently as she disappeared between the trees, sword and water skin in hand.  When he turned around, he saw the mage’s eyes glittering. Daryl wasn’t sleeping at all, at least not now. Glenn had no idea if he just didn’t trust Glenn or if he couldn’t rest with Carol gone. Whatever Daryl’s reason, Glenn felt uncomfortable being watched by him, and he hoped Carol would be back soon.

She wasn’t back yet when he saw a thick black column of smoke rising quite close to where the smaller white one had been the night before.

He had a bad feeling about this.

.-.

So far, he hadn’t come upon any living soul ever since leaving the burning inn behind. He was hungry, thirsty, and tired. His eyes were burning not just from being awake or, at best, sleeping fitfully since he had fled his home, but also from crying – since he was alone, there was nobody around to make fun of him for it, so he could be a boy who had lost his mother hours ago, just a few years after the war had ripped his father from his home. Wiping one hand across his face and chin, sticky and dripping with tears, had become an automatic movement that he performed every few minutes, whether he was actually crying or not.

From time to time he wondered why he had even bothered to take his backpack along. One of its shoulder straps had snapped a while back and he had never gotten around to repairing it, so he had to either carry it over one shoulder or in one hand now, and both annoyed him. He was angry with himself for not taking along any food and a waterskin, completely ignoring the fact that he had been afraid for his life and there had been no time at all to take along anything but what was within his reach the moment the door of the inn was kicked in. In typical teenage boy fashion, he overestimated his options in that situation – now that there was no way anymore to prove him wrong – and berated himself for doing the  wrong thing, or not enough of the right.

And of course he blamed himself for his mother’s death.

He moved on, continuing down the road, oblivious to the beauty of the landscape unfolding around him, moving ever closer toward the foothills of the mountains, his heart full of despair and grief.

.-.

Glenn watched the warrior – Carol – wash the mage’s face, hands, and arms with a cloth dipped in cold water. The way she touched Daryl, fast asleep in his nest of blankets, this not at all businesslike way of taking care of him, raised certain suspicions in Glenn, but he assumed that voicing them would not be met with a joyous confirmation, so he remained quiet about them.

He noted that, while she had helped Daryl take off his hooded, long-sleeved robes the night before, she was not taking off his  equally long-sleeved  shirt or breeches even to cool him down, but he wisely kept his mouth shut about this as well. He had no wish to get another sharp reprimand from her or be turned into a toad by one of the mage’s spells if he was awake enough to hear him.

When the mage coughed again, a horrible, rasping sound, even worse than what he had produced all through the night, Carol dropped her cloth into the small wooden bowl of water – probably their soup bowl – and instead lifted the mug in which she had brewed fresh tea for him.

“Daryl.”

Her voice was soft enough not to carry beyond the cave, but just loud enough to rouse Daryl. His eyes opened and he cast a bleary look first at her and then at Glenn. The glare he gave the young juggler was hard and threatening, and despite the mage’s condition Glenn found himself cringing back. If he had ever had any intention of trying to best the warrior while she was distracted by caring for the mage - which he had not -, this would have been the moment he would have thought better of it.

“Daryl, you need to drink this.”

The mage’s face relaxed into an almost peaceful expression as his eyes found the warrior by his side again. Glenn felt as if a burning torch had been pulled back from his face and he shuddered to think of what it would feel like to be at the receiving end of the mage’s anger, if this was what his distrust felt like.

Carol slid one hand under Daryl’s head and helped him lift it from his folded pack so he could sip from the fragrant tea. After the first mouthful he coughed slightly, but his breathing came more easily once he had drunk deeply from it. He closed his eyes when Carol lowered his head again.

“We need to move on tomorrow.”

Glenn almost laughed out loud. This man was in no shape to swat away a fly, yet here he was, talking about taking to the road again just a day from now. His fever had to be higher than he had thought.

“We’ll see.”

Carol picked up the cloth again and squeezed most of the water out of it before taking up her cooling routine once more. Her slow movements and soothing voice had an infinitely calming effect even on Glenn.

“We won’t move out unless you’re better. If you are out on the road in this condition it will only get worse, and maybe weaken you permanently. We need you rested so you can cast, and to cast, you first have to be in a condition to relearn your spells.” The sound of water trickling back into the bowl as she refreshed her cloth, followed once more by her mesmerizing movements as she washed Daryl’s flushed face again. “We have enough time. Don’t push yourself like that.”

The mage mumbled something too low for Glenn to hear, and suddenly he felt uncomfortable, as if he had intruded upon something intimate.

“I’ll find us some food,” he announced, and rose to his feet. Carol acknowledged him with a nod, while the mage ignored him after a brief, baleful look. Glenn began to wonder why Daryl had even agreed to take him along if his presence was pissing him off so much .

Grabbing his backpack, just on the off chance that he would actually find something edible, Glenn made his way outside and found his eyes drawn to the column of smoke to the east. He had the distinct feeling that this fire was related to them and that Carol was holding something back, but for now, he was not going to pry. The mage’s stares were too uncomfortable for him as it was, and he had no wish to make them even worse.

The smoke rising in the distance was no longer oily and black but had turned white, with just a few streaks of gray remaining. He wondered what had been burning there, and whether he had just overlooked the fire the night before because the sky had been ablaze during sunset. Had anyone died? Was this something he, or they, had started?

_ Darkshore _ .

Making his way through the underbrush, he kept looking out for mushrooms, berries, and traps that someone else who lived around here might have set, but not yet checked on today. A concerned voice in the back of his head kept reminding him that he knew next to nothing about foraging – to him, any mushroom, any berry, any fruit on any tree, looked great. When he wasn’t busy trying to get out from under the threatening stares of mages, he was painfully aware of the fact that, left to his own devices in the wild, he would probably have poisoned himself ages ago.

Spying a ring of mushrooms, he crouched down next to it, opened his backpack and started gently turning them to separate them from their mycelium – he knew at least enough not to cut them off or dig them out, hurting and maybe destroying the huge organism that they formed together, and with the mycelium hidden below the ground. He had no idea whether or not these were, in fact, edible mushrooms, but just trusted that Carol or Daryl would know and save him this once. These two seemed well versed in woodlore, and since they had both agreed to defend him on this trip, he hoped they wouldn’t let him eat something poisonous right under their noses.

A twig cracked under the weight of a foot settling down on it, and Glenn threw his backpack into the nearest shrub, jumped up, and screamed in terror, turning around and around on the spot, trampling the mushrooms he hadn’t harvested yet, while trying to identify what was approaching him. His mind imagined fantastical beasts with bony carapaces and arm-long spikes on their backs, mouthfuls of razor-sharp teeth, and poisonous saliva.

In reality, it was a boy that was coming up on him, no more than fifteen years old - if that -, almost painfully thin, his eyes red from crying or lack of sleep – or maybe both, considering the state his clothes and face were in. At Glenn’s terrified scream, he had dropped his own backpack and taken a few steps back, cracking more twigs as he went.

Suddenly, soundlessly and without warning, Carol was standing between them, sword drawn, glaring from one to the other.

“What is going on here?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vile language, violence both real and implied.

Her voice was dangerously low, her eyes spearing both of them like daggers. When she looked at the teenager who had happened upon Glenn she immediately recognized his mother in his eyes, in the bone structure of his face, and in his dark brown hair.

Her heart wept, because she instantly realized what had to have happened to bring him out here, disheveled, distraught, his face streaked with tears leaking from red-rimmed eyes. She thought back to the fire and the column of smoke, and to the brave woman taking on life on her own after her husband’s death, and sent a prayer to the gods to keep her safe in their realm.

“Come.”

Carol motioned for both of them to pick up their packs and follow her as she sheathed her sword and moved upslope once more, loath to leave Daryl on his own for any length of time, defenseless as he was. He was a powerful mage, arguably one of the most powerful there had been since the Days of Magic, but he hadn’t been able to learn his spells for a day and would be reduced to the bare minimum in the event of a fight,  which would both weaken and injure him upon casting \- and once that was spent, he’d have to physically defend himself against any assailants, which was hardly any better in his condition.

When they reached the cave, she called out to warn him that one more person was returning than had left.

“The boy from the inn has followed us, unwittingly, I think, I’ve brought him with me.” A tired sigh was her only answer. “Do you still have some of the sleep tincture in your pack?”

Daryl stirred in his mound of blankets, sitting up and looking toward them warily . Glenn thought that, despite his wide shoulders, strong hands,  and fierce glare , he looked strangely vulnerable in just his wide black shirt and breeches, and without his red robes - almost as if the robes were a kind of armor. The food, tea, and rest he had gotten seemed to have been good for him - he looked healthier again already. With a hand that was surprisingly blunt and muscular for a spellcaster, he reached for his pack and started to carefully remove his precious maps from it. Once they were out of the way, he sank his arm into his pack to the elbow and brought his hand back up with a small, dark green glass bottle.

He absentmindedly reached for his tea mug and drained it, then held his hand to his forehead to check his temperature. His sky blue eyes found Carol behind the boy and the juggler, and he nodded at her , the look in his eyes surprisingly soft .

“Tomorrow. I’m stable now, fever’s going down. I’ll be able to study my spells this afternoon.” For a moment, his eyes strayed to the boy with a thoughtful and compassionate glance before he continued. “I’d be ready to go out before sunset, but I think we can all use one more night in here. At least I’ll be able to take watch tonight so the two of you will get more rest.” He looked from Carol to Glenn and back. His voice was dark and raspy, but stronger again, Carol noted with relief. 

He brought another mug out of his bag, not as finely crafted as the one he used for his tea, then removed the cloth wound around the neck and mouth of the small bottle and pulled out the wax plug sealing it. After another quick glance at the boy to assess his weight and height, he carefully counted out half a dozen drops of the bottle’s dark, viscous contents into the new mug. Once he had reached a count of six, he stoppered the small bottle again and secured the plug with the cloth before filling up the mug with water from the skin lying next to his blankets.

Rising with the mug in hand, his movements surprisingly fluid, he stepped up to the group facing him and handed the mug to the boy. Glenn was half expecting him to skewer the boy with his blue eyes, but when he looked at the mage, he was surprised to find care and compassion in his face, as well as a deep underlying sadness - he knew what had happened, Glenn realized.

“Drink.” He raised his free hand to touch the boy’s skin and lift his head with his index finger to look into his dark eyes. Glenn noticed a number of white marks scattered across the skin of his hand - scars. Cuts. Abrasions. Burns. A smooth, waxy, molten-looking patch of red skin peeking out from under his sleeve just before he dropped his hand again. “Been up and runnin’ all night, hm? Since the day we left the inn.”

So Daryl, Glenn thought, had also seen the column of smoke, first black, then white, had apparently noted the fire against the blazing sky when they had reached the barren slope leading up to their cave the night before, and had arrived at the same realization as Carol.  _ Observant _ .

The boy nodded, tears welling in his eyes again.

“‘s okay to be sad, but there’s no need to be afraid.” Daryl steadily held out the mug with the medicine in it, and the boy reluctantly accepted it. “Sorry, I don’t remember your name, if I ever even heard it. ‘m Daryl, she’s Carol, he’s Glenn. We’ll take care of you. You’re not alone.”

“Carl.”

Sniffling, the boy raised the mug to his lips, took a careful sip to test the taste, made a face, and then drained it, gulping the water down. Taking in his limp backpack hanging down from his shoulder, clearly devoid of any supplies, Glenn realized he’d gone without any food or drink since running from his burning home.

Amazed, Glenn watched as Daryl moved to the back of the cave again and gathered two blankets from his own bed and one from Carol’s to prepare a separate one in a free, dry spot, on the rushes kindly laid out by the party that had stayed here before them. If anyone, he had expected Carol to be the one to take care of Carl, but she didn’t seem surprised at all at Daryl taking the initiative like this. Ever since he had sat up, she hadn’t moved a muscle.  _ She knows him well. _

Returning to his own gear, Daryl brought another waterskin out of his bag, along with a small parcel wrapped in large leaves and tied with sturdy twine. Slipping the twine off one end of the parcel with his strong fingers, he unfolded the leaves, revealing a chunk of bread and a piece of … goat cheese, from the smell of it. 

“Eat, drink, then sleep. You’ve been through a lot, you need it. We’ll be here.”

While his voice still sounded gruff, his eyes were kind as he handed the food to Carl. There was pain in them, and understanding, both hidden deep, but Glenn had learned to read his audiences, and he knew what to look for. _ There is more to this guy than meets the eye. _

Without another word, Daryl returned to his bed and was covered up and resting in it again within moments, even before Carl had recovered from his surprise and started wolfing down the bread and cheese.

.-.

Dwight felt as if still not having found the mage and the warrior was a personal affront. They had found several sets of footprints leading away from the inn, but it was located on the edge of a small village, so there was always the possibility that they had been left by someone completely unrelated to their search.

Yet Dwight, knowing that his wife was still in Negan’s camp and would be in danger until he returned with their elusive prey, was frantic to catch up to them as quickly as possible so he’d be able to go back. There was no telling what Negan would subject his wife to if he didn’t return by the deadline he’d been given, and the farther out he was forced to go to catch the two perps, the longer his way back was going to take.

Dwight was running out of time.

Monroe, his second in command, came up to him with a glint of excitement in his eyes.

“We might’ve found something,” he announced, gesturing for Dwight to follow him.

They were a good distance away from the inn after making camp several hours’ travel from it so as not to get smoked during the night as it was burning down. The rain that had come down toward morning had washed out most of the prints on the road itself, but Monroe had found three sets leading off the road, protected by the trees lining it, and into the forest, in the direction of the foothills overlooking the ford and bridge near Fairhaven. Monroe himself did seem slightly doubtful, though.

“I know we’re really looking for two people, but might they have hooked up with someone for safety?” 

Dwight could see where he was coming from, and understood his concern. Negan wanted his people to think for themselves, and following a trail of three prints when they were looking for two people might be seen as stupid by some.

Dwight, however, was one of the brighter candles in Negan’s camp.

“Remember that squinty-eyed juggler we had pinned down when they came?” he asked Monroe. “I think it’s entirely possible they’ve been with him ever since, and that they are continuing together now, for safety, just like you said.” He patted Monroe’s shoulder. “Well done. I’ll make sure to mention this when we get back. Quick thinking there.”

With a last predatory look at the footprints, he put his index fingers between his lips and whistled three times, short and sharp, and then waited in the middle of the muddy road for the other two men to appear from amid the trees and underbrush where they’d been looking for traces left by their prey.

“Monroe here has found their track, let’s follow them.”

They set out in the direction of the foothills.

.-.

The camp was slowly coming to life again. The rain of the previous night had forced everyone into their tents, but now, with the sky bright and clear and the sun up over the horizon and drying the ground, people were congregating around the cooking fires and sharing jokes, jibes, and  gossip  they’d learned from their tent mates during the night. Raucous laughter sprang up here and there, with everyone in high spirits again with the weather so much better.

A hush fell over the camp when the flap of a tent guarded by four armed men was thrown open and two more men stepped out of it with a woman between them. The uncomfortable silence followed the group as it made its way across the camp and toward the large tent in which Negan lived when they were on the road. 

The woman’s face was pale as she walked between the two men leading her along, and as they approached Negan’s tent, her steps began to falter. One of the men shoved her along with a knife to her back. She stumbled from the force of his push and barely avoided falling. The man gave an angry grunt and grabbed her arm to pull her along, increasing his speed. Negan was waiting, and he got impatient really fast. While everyone could understand that the women, for the most part, didn’t enjoy fulfilling his needs and wants, still none of the guards wanted to incur Negan’s wrath either. When you got an order, you followed it, and promptly, or you’d be made to suffer , one way or another, directly or indirectly .

The trio disappeared into the tent of their leader, the flaps closing behind them, but it took a long time until the lighthearted conversations around the camp started up again. The day seemed to have gotten darker.

.-.

“So,” Merle began, lounging back on his stack of blankets that made up his seat at Negan’s side, “watcha plan on doin’ once we catch those two motherfuckers? Can we even make sure it was them freed the girls?”

Negan stared at him darkly. If he were to be honest, he didn’t give a flying fuck if they ever caught the people who had done this. All he wanted was to take it out on someone, and he wanted to do it visibly, and graphically, so his whole band would get a renewed warning on what happened to those who dared cross his path and thwart him. He had no time and no wish to make sure that the people they would ultimately catch up to and punish were actually those who had freed the slaves he had been meaning to sell in Fairhaven once he had used them for his pleasure often enough.

What he wanted was to strike fear in the hearts of both his enemies and his followers so nobody would ever dare to oppose him again, let alone take something that belonged to him, whether it be goods or people.

“What do you think I’m planning on doing?” Negan’s hand went out to curl around the handle of his club, studded with nails that were still encrusted with the dried blood of his latest victims. “We’ll get to see the inside of their heads, as usual.” His cold eyes met Merle’s pale blue ones. “Need to keep the cattle in line, don’t I?”

Both his look and his tone of voice clearly indicated that Merle, too, although he sometimes had a place at Negan’s side in his tent, was no more than cattle to be kept in line, and that he would do well to remember that.


	9. Chapter 9

True to his word, the mage was up and running again that same afternoon and started learning his spells from a book bound in blue cloth. Glenn, who had never before seen a book in his life, was fascinated by the dry rustling of the pages as Daryl turned them, and by the soft whisper of Daryl’s fingertips as he all but caressed them when placing his fingers on the parchment, eyes closed, as he memorized each spell anew.

There even were illustrations, and illuminated capital letters, and a shimmering red bookmark that seemed to be made of the kind of cloth used for the robes of the ladies of the richest courts in the country. It was easily one of the most beautiful things Glenn had ever seen, and probably one of the most expensive ones as well.

This book containing Daryl’s spells was very probably more than two hundred years old - since the art of making books like this had been lost -, and worth more than the farm of Glenn’s parents including all fields and livestock - and Daryl carried it about in his backpack, wrapped in oiled paper and a large cured sheep skin, and without an army to guard it.

Well, he  _ did  _ know the spells it contained, and how to use them, which probably made up for the lack of an army at least for a while. And once he ran out of spells, he had not just his crossbow at his disposal, which was leaning against the cave’s wall next to him, but also a nice collection of knives that he carried in leather sheaths hanging from his belt under his robes.

Plus, of course, a warrior who seemed ready to defend him to the death.

Between his training as a mage and the fact that he also seemed to be a force to reckon with in the more physical ways of defending both himself and the warrior, who in turn was prepared to kill to keep him safe, Glenn felt relieved to be on Daryl and Carol’s side of any potential conflicts coming their way.

In the early afternoon, Daryl took watch at the cave entrance, relieving Carol who at once made her way to the back of the cave to check on Carl who was still sleeping. Glenn had been sitting with him, muttering soft consoling reassurance to him whenever his sleep got uneasy or he started dreaming. In his sleep, he had cried several times and called out for his mother. The events of the past day were clearly catching up to him. 

Daryl’s first action was to  growl at Glenn to guard the entrance while he was out on the slope leading up toward it. Bewildered, Glenn took the spot Carol had just left and watched as Daryl, after shedding his conspicuous red robes at the cave entrance, slowly walked the perimeter of the barren space between the cave and the woods, stopped every few yards, and performed a sequence of hand gestures every time, with his lips moving. Even though the treeline wasn’t that far away, without his bright robes Daryl was hard to distinguish among the tree trunks, and Glenn silently wondered how often good and neutral mages took off their bright robes to remain as invisible as their brothers leaning toward the darker side of their art, or divert attention from themselves.

And how much more convenient it would be for Daryl to wear black robes.

.-.

Daryl had brought one of his pouches  with him, and every time he stopped he reached into it with his right hand to remove from it a pinch of flash powder and sprinkle it on the ground with a serial spell that would detonate it the moment someone or something with evil intent crossed the treeline to approach the cave they were making camp in. Every time he mumbled another sequel to the original spell, he hoped that it was not going to get triggered - a serial spell harming others would cause serial injuries to him.

From time to time  Glenn saw him wander deeper into the forest, to return again after a minute or two. Once he was finished with securing their perimeter, he carefully tied his pouch again and then sat down in the sun among the knee-high shrubs  and rounded stones , legs crossed, eyes closed, open hands resting on his thighs, palms up, and waited as if he had not a care in the world. Mystified, Glenn looked on as the man who was supposed to be on watch was apparently doing nothing of the sort after pointlessly wandering around for a while.

_ What was he doing out there? Had he looked for signs left for him by the people chasing them?  _ _ Had he left signs for them in turn?  _ _ Was he only waiting to turn on him and Carol to hand them over? _ _ Had he made a deal with them? _

.-.

A butterfly was first. It landed on the tip of Daryl’s right ring finger, feelers and wings quivering, to take a break. Feeling its delicate feet settling on his hand, Daryl found its miniscule mind and submitted his plea. The butterfly, feeling safe on his warm skin as he sat there, not moving, consented to his request and took off again, tethered to Daryl’s mind by its promise to look out for humans coming this way. A bee came next, its feet and belly coated in pollen, and Daryl thanked the tiny worker for her diligence and repeated his plea. As he hadn’t stirred when the bee had settled on his arm, it felt safe and warm with him, and since his request felt reasonable the bee, too, agreed to keep its faceted eyes looking out on his behalf.

Daryl remained seated, offering himself as a landing site for insects, until he had recruited a dozen very different creatures – a dragonfly, a wasp, a fly, even a mosquito – to look out for their enemies with him and alert him to the presence of other humans approaching. This, combined with the flash powder perimeter, made him feel safer than he had felt in days. Breathing a sigh of relief, he rose from the stony ground and returned to the cave to put his robes back on and relieve Glenn at its entrance.

Time seemed to crawl, marked only by the passage of the sun and the clouds in the sky and the shadows on the ground. Everyone but Daryl was resting now in the coolness of the cave, recovering from terror, grief, and days and nights spent on the road and out in the open in inclement weather. In his sleep, Carl had moved closer toward Carol who hadn’t pushed him off, realizing that he was in desperate need of human contact and comfort. Glenn, too, was lying on top of his bedding in a state of drowsy semi-consciousness when he noticed Daryl perking up at the cave’s entrance.

.-.

It was a spider that reported back to him.

He had recruited it, along with various others who had built their intricate nets close to the open space surrounding their cave, while still placing his flash powder traps, and as he was sitting there, looking out over their safe area and the treetops in the glare of the afternoon sunlight, he felt its eight feet tickling his hand. 

Sitting up straighter, he lifted it up and allowed it to daintily step onto his bright red shoulder. Tall two-legs were disturbing the creatures of the forest and coming ever closer to its net, the spider whispered, so softly and in such a high-pitched voice that Daryl had to strain his magically enhanced sense of hearing to understand what the spider was telling him. There was more than one two-leg, apparently, but when he asked back how many there were, the spider was unable to answer. It had only learned this from creatures fleeing from the two-legs, and it had no concept for counting or numbers, even if the ones alarming it had mentioned one. “More than one” was already testing its limits as it was, Daryl realized. Expecting an actual number from such a small animal was unrealistic.

Thanking the spider, he asked if it wanted to go back to the forest or stay in the protected space of the cave, especially in view of a number of two-legs prowling through the forest right now. His tiny helper danced about on his shoulder for a few moments, probably looking the cave over as a potential place for building its future nets and raising its young, before it changed back to his hand and asked him to be placed on the sun-warmed ground outside again. “Too dark, too cold, too little food,” came its verdict.

With a smile, Daryl lowered his hand to allow the tiny creature to return to its home. As soon as they were alone again, his whole demeanor changed.

“Carol, Glenn, we’re getting visitors.”

.-.

At the point closest to the foothills that had been accompanying the road for some time now, the footprints angled away from the forest road for good and headed straight toward the hills and mountains. For just a moment, Dwight began to doubt again that they were following the right group of people, but then he realized that maybe they had just been looking for a good place to set up their camp for the night in a spot not too close to the road.

Motioning for Monroe and the others to be quiet, he made his way uphill as stealthily as he could. The forest floor was now a jumble of dry needles and rotting leaves and brambles blocking their path, and he had to give up any pretense of following the prints any longer - he was unable to discern them in the gloom of the dense forest and with all the stuff covering the soft earth to the left and right of the road, which alone had made it possible for him to track the trail for as long as he had. He just hoped that, once they reached the tree line higher up into the hills, there would be something to point them in the right direction again.

They laboriously made their noisy way over and around fallen trees, thorny undergrowth and dense thickets of young trees where older ones had fallen, making room for new growth. The afternoon heat wasn’t helping - they were sweaty and exhausted before they even saw the edge of the forest in the distance. Hunkering down behind a long-thorned bush with dark blue berries, Dwight signalled for the others to join him. Once they had made their way over and were cowering down next to him, he looked around conspiratorially as if expecting rival gangs to pop up out of nowhere.

“Okay, I expect them to have set up some sort of camp in this area somewhere,” he began without even trying to back up his claim by anything like solid evidence - for the very simple reason that there was none. He was doing this solely by the seat of his pants, with no tracking experience whatsoever at his disposal, but obviously he was never going to admit this to his men. Being seen as incompetent first by them and then by Negan was a surefire way to get himself killed.

“They had to stop at some point to get some rest. We’ve been hunting them for days, and there is no evidence that they have crossed the ford or the bridge yet.” There was also no evidence that they had  _ not _ , but there was no need to point this out to his men. “So let’s fan out so each of us can search one section of this slope - that will be the fastest way to find them.” A cloud of small flies rose from the bush he was crouching next to and buzzed off toward the tree line as he made a far-flung gesture toward the mountains. “And for all the gods’ sakes, be quiet!”

.-.

The men separated, and once there were roughly twenty paces’ distance between each pair they all started ascending the slope again, still partially hidden among the trees. Daryl softly snapped his fingers which had Carol on alert instantly. The soft rustle of her blankets as she sat up on them was enough to let him know she was wide awake and looking toward him. Without taking his eyes off the slope and the tree line for even a second, he gestured for her to come to him, and she joined him without making even the slightest sound.

Standing next to him, disguised by the earthen wall at the lip of the cave and the fronds of the creeper vines hanging down over the entrance, she looked out with him as he pointed at several spots, careful not to move his hand too far out. He had pushed back his blood red sleeve, exposing his black shirt beneath it, so no stray ray of sunlight would strike it and turn it into a beacon.

“Four,” he whispered so softly that Glenn almost thought he had imagined it.

Still moving as soundlessly as a cat, Carol moved back into the cave to quickly and silently put on her leather armor and collect her sword and his crossbow. Carrying both weapons, she made her way to the front of the cave again and handed his bow to him, his hand finding the weapon in hers still without a single glance at her. Glenn marveled at their wordless understanding in such a tight situation.

Suddenly, Daryl held up one hand as if in warning. Despite the robes shrouding his body, Glenn could see him tensing up. Carol raised her sword, but Daryl placed the fingertips of his left hand on her arm for an instant before raising his bow, which was enough to make her lower her weapon again.

Glenn saw Daryl’s reasoning. The traps the mage had set on the edge of the forest would help to surprise and maybe confuse and delay the approaching men if they were lucky. The crossbow was a long distance weapon with which Daryl might be able to take out at least one, if not two of their attackers without the others being any the wiser. Only then would it truly be necessary to go in with melee weapons such as swords and knives - unless he had a spell or two up his sleeve that he could use at a distance to defend them, maybe reducing the number of attackers to one before they even reached the cave. 

Come to think of it, that fireball at the cart had been neat.


	10. Chapter 10

Dwight crept through the underbrush, trying to minimize the noise he created. Although the air was still cooler in the shadows of the forest than outside in the harsh sunlight, he nevertheless felt sweat running down his back and coating his face and hands. His clothes were sticking to his skin. Several strands of his unruly, shoulder-length hair were stuck to his cheeks and jaw, annoying him. He kept trying to brush them away but only succeeded in smearing his face with the grit stuck to his hands from pushing and crawling through the underbrush.

Grabbing another bough hanging in his way, Dwight yelped and pulled back his hand, staring at it. He hadn’t noticed the viciously pointed thorns covering the bough as most of his attention had been on the ground so he wouldn’t turn an ankle in a dip or on a fallen bit of wood, or one of the stones that were beginning to litter the forest floor this close to the foothills. Several bright red beads of blood now lined his fingers, with two of the thorns still stuck in his flesh.

Dwight growled as he stopped to get them out. When his men, who had lined up on his left, also stopped one after the other, he signaled for them to keep moving - the sooner he had these annoying pests dead on the ground, the better. His boys could start routing them without him while he stayed safely in the background, away from any danger and out of harm’s reach. If they had indeed been following the magic user, keeping himself out of the range of his fireballs and other long range spells might also be a good idea.

.-.

Daryl raised his bow, bolt already nocked as always, and aimed it at one of the four indistinct figures in the forest that he was able to make out. As soon as he had a clear shot, he gently pulled the trigger and the bow twanged as it launched the bolt toward its target. The man fell without his companions even noticing that anything had happened, before he had ever stepped out of the forest, Daryl’s bolt lodged between his eyes. Deftly plucking one of his reserve bolts from the rack  mounted under the tip of the bow without even looking, Daryl quickly loaded the weapon again, pulling the string back with his bare hands as he held it down against the ground with one foot in the stirrup at the tip, and let his second bolt fly as two of the remaining three men stepped out of the forest. 

One of them fell back silently, disappearing among the trees and underbrush, and Daryl quickly assessed the distance between the closer of the two remaining men and himself. When he arrived at the conclusion that he would not have enough time to load his bow for a third shot without compromising their position, he reached under his robes with his right hand to pull out one of his delicate knives while leaning his crossbow against the wall of the cave, tip down.

The men coming at them still hadn’t been able to pinpoint their location, apparently, for the two who were now out in the open among the low shrubs covering the rock-strewn expanse before the cave kept looking around nervously as if the group they were stalking could possibly be hiding among knee high bushes and stunted trees  and the boulders littering the ground between them .

Carol and Daryl exchanged a look. They had both recognized the dirty-blond man who had led the group ambushing Glenn at the cart  \- he was the one still hiding on the edge of the forest, letting his men take the brunt of their defense . These people had to bear either Glenn or the two of them a serious grudge if it had prompted them to follow their trail for two days in the kind of weather they’d had.

Meanwhile, Glenn had silently made his way to the front of the cave and looked out now at two of the men who had tried to steal his pack when Carol and Daryl had come to his help. In the tense silence, Daryl again held up one hand so the two of them would remain still, and then carefully placed the knife he had drawn from its sheath onto his flat right palm, its sharply honed tip pointing outside. He touched its hilt with the fingertips of his left hand while mumbling a string of unintelligible words. Glenn stared on as the knife blade started glowing red and a low humming sound rose from the weapon. Turning minimally to adjust the blade’s orientation for the movement of the man outside, Daryl again pointed it at the closer of the two approaching the cave and then made a shooing motion with his free hand.

The knife launched itself from Daryl’s open palm with a deep, thrumming sound, like an oversized bumblebee, and hurtled toward the man Daryl had aimed at, burying itself in his chest to the hilt with what almost sounded like a scream. Daryl grunted and rubbed his chest. The man toppled over without a sound, crushing one of the stunted trees as he fell, and hit the ground with a dull thud and the rattle of displaced stones. The noise from the knife subsided. The man didn’t move.

“Heart,” Daryl mumbled, and Glenn realized that the knife had killed the man almost instantly, across a distance of at least fifteen yards..

The blond man who had led the group ambushing Glenn stopped and stared in terror as his companion fell to the ground, then looked around frantically for his other two missing men. When he didn’t find them, he hissed what Carol assumed were their names in the direction of the forest, but didn’t get an answer. They could see when the realization dawned on his face that he was on his own, still with no idea where the people he had hoped to take by surprise were hiding, and that they obviously knew he was coming and clearly had an advantage over him – not to mention that they had apparently managed to take out two of his men before they had ever left the forest. The terror on his face when he finally understood that they could kill him at any moment now without him ever even seeing them was almost comical.

Daryl was just reaching into his robes again to get another knife when a panicked scream from the back of the cave had them all whirl around to find Carl sitting up in the bed Daryl had made for him, his eyes wide with fear and grief. The instant Daryl saw that the boy had only woken from a nightmare, he turned back around to take out their last attacker, but found only the empty slope, and several swinging branches on the edge of the treeline marking his path. He moved to leave the cave, but now it was Carol who placed her fingertips on his arm to stop him.

Their eyes locked. For a few more heartbeats, Daryl looked tense, his eyes hard and angry, but Carol never budged. She could feel his body heat radiating through his shirt and red robes, she felt his anger like physical pressure, like a strong wind pushing at her, felt the tension in his body, waiting to be unleashed on the last survivor of the group that had followed them here, but she didn’t want them to separate as that would only serve to weaken them. 

If she had read the situation correctly, the survivor of the attacking group was alone out there now or he would have just called out for any reinforcements to join him. He had been in an extremely vulnerable position, fully exposed, with no idea in which direction to even fight back, and calling for additional men to join him would not have compromised his position any further. Instead, he had chosen to flee, and she was certain that they would not encounter him again, at least not while they were holed up in this cave for protection.

There was no need for Daryl to go out, weakening their defenses, dividing and weakening the group, and endangering himself, when the remaining attacker was no longer a threat to them.

She felt the muscles in his arm relaxing slowly as he began to think instead of react again and gradually let go of his anger. In his eyes, she still saw the burning need to protect her, to keep her safe at all cost, even if it meant his life, and she gave him the tiniest hint of a smile in answer to this as her fingertips caressed his arm.

With one final deep breath Daryl relaxed.

“He never saw us, right?”

Both Carol and Glenn shook their heads. Carl came forward to stand next to Glenn, looking out at the slope baking in the sunshine.

“Was that -?”

When his sentence remained hanging in the air between them, unfinished, Carol was the one to take it on.

“They were attacking Glenn on the road when we first saw them, and we believe that they are the group - or a part of the group - that burned down your home.” She reached out to place one hand on the teenager’s shoulder, holding his burning eyes. “Don’t worry. We will keep you safe.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did these two meet anyway? Warning for blood, gore, injury.

Night had fallen without any hint of the lone surviving attacker coming back. Daryl’s flash powder traps were still intact, he had gone out once more to reinforce his bond with the inconspicuous “spies” he had recruited among the fauna so they would alert him if the last man should come back either alone or with reinforcements, and they had made sure to remain quiet for the rest of the day although nothing pointed at anyone even remotely in the same area anymore.

Glenn had taken first watch after sunset. Both Carol and Daryl had given him one of their blankets each to keep himself warm since they had doused the fire for the night. Neither Glenn nor Carl had noticed that this left both of them with just one blanket each - but chances would have been good for both Carol and Daryl to reject any attempt to give back any blankets. They wanted the teenager they were protecting, and the man watching out for them, warm for this night, end of discussion.

Both Glenn and Carl were secretly surprised not to witness any wishes for a good night between Carol and Daryl as the warrior and the mage bedded down next to each other, with about an arm’s length between their bedrolls. 

Daryl had made another mug of the tea he took against his cold and downed it almost scalding hot. He then carefully wrapped his spellbook in its protective covers and gently placed it in his backpack, which lay next to his crossbow. All of his bolts were back, retrieved from the bodies of their attackers, cleaned, and checked over to make sure they were still intact. The bow was cleaned, oiled, loaded, and ready for use again.

Looking over at Carol, Daryl watched with an indecipherable look on his face as she prepared her bed for the night, took off and laid out her leather armor so she’d be in it again at a moment’s notice if they should come under attack once more, and then wrapped herself in her blanket to lie down.

“You okay?”

While his three companions had carried on a quiet intermittent conversation since the afternoon, he hadn’t spoken since the sun had touched the horizon. At one point, he had briefly left the cave with his backpack and a waterskin. It was fully dark now, and his voice sounded hoarse with disuse again, like it had when Glenn had first met these two. Not much of a talker, Daryl.

Carol raised her head to look at him. Her eyes met his, and they both froze.

Suddenly, nobody but the two of them seemed to be present any longer.

Daryl’s breath caught in his tightening chest. Her luminous eyes, her face, radiating kindness, her hands, that were the only ones that had touched him without inflicting pain. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but couldn’t.

Carol was the one who had his back, always, unconditionally; the one who would fight to the death to keep him safe, alone against an army if need be. Carol was the one who didn’t judge him for who and what he had been, for where he came from.

Carol was the best thing that had happened to him, ever, yet she was so far above him that he would never be able to tell her just how much she meant to him. Just being in the same space as her was more than he deserved.

She nodded in reply to his question, and he averted his burning eyes, his neck and face growing hot as he blushed.

An eternity later, he was finally able to draw another breath, and swallow the lump in his throat, and lie down on the ground, an arm’s length from her as she lay there, next to him, a greater distance between them than he could ever hope to cover, and pretend that his soul wasn’t screaming.

.-.

_ The stench was unbearable. It was something the songs never mentioned, when it was time to praise the kings and the lords in whose names the battles had been fought. The stench of blood, and vomit, and urine, and feces, shed and released at the moment of death. The stench of intestines spilled on the ground through gaping wounds, ripped and sliced open by swords, spears, or knives. _

_ The smoke of burning haystacks, farm houses, slaughtered animals, was hanging over the field like a pall, torn open here and there by the wind to allow the sun to highlight the horrors the battle had left behind. _

_ They had been routed, and she was tempted to think they had never stood a chance in the first place. The enemy had had more horses at their disposal, well trained, disciplined, and wearing armor, and while they had at least tried to make a stand, it had been no use. An outnumbered army of foot soldiers with lances and swords had been decimated by well-trained soldiers on armored horses and mercilessly overpowered by one sweep of the enemy’s foot soldiers. _

_ Now she was lying in the dirt, unable to get up, pain twisting in her guts every time she moved her right leg or attempted to sit up. She guessed that, with a number of lances hitting her, her torso had to be bruised quite badly under her leather breast plate. In addition to that, a sword had glanced off her shoulder armor and sunk into her left bicep. _

_ Getting back to her lord’s keep without help in this condition would be almost impossible, yet she had no idea if anyone was even left alive from her side to look for her, let alone able to help her get back. Not that she saw that place as a true home, with the lords able to cut loose the knights and warriors fighting for them at any time, and her own lord slain in battle, but it would be a roof over her head, a place to be safe and heal in the wake of this disaster. She had nowhere else to go, after all. _

_ A figure approached her through the smoke, and although she had been hoping for someone to find her, now that someone was actually coming for her, her insides clenched in something akin to fear. The figure was shrouded in a hooded robe whose hem touched the ground, any color bled out of it by the fog and the smoke, and her mind raced trying to remember what - if any - enemy fighters she had seen wearing one. Had anyone on  _ her _ side worn a robe of any kind? _

_ And then, with the figure still approaching and the robe turning from dark gray to red,  it hit her. _

_ The enemy army had had a mage on their side. _

_ And mages wore robes. _

_ The figure stopped next to her and reached up with both hands to push back the hood, the wide sleeves of the red robe falling back to reveal strong hands, stained with blood, and muscular arms under shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He was wearing a dirty bandage on his right hand that was spotted with blood. He had dark blond hair that hung into his tired face, and piercing blue eyes. The look he gave her seemed cold, but she didn’t miss the compassion lurking in the background, and when he saw that she was alive and hurt, he didn’t hesitate. _

_ He knelt down next to her, the small pouches on his belt swinging from side to side as he moved, the tip of a crossbow that was riding on his back just visible over his shoulder from her point of view. His strong hands expertly explored the stab wound to her thigh and the cut on her arm. For long minutes, he worked in silence, getting bandages and a jar of salve out of the largest pouch on his belt, cutting away the fabric of her pants and sleeve, putting pressure on her wounds, carefully cleaning them and stitching them up, spreading a dollop of the salve from his pot on the skin around them, and then carefully bandaging them. _

_ “You hurt anywhere else?” _

_ He sounded gruff, businesslike, exhausted. Even before he had started working on her, there had been blood on his hands. It seemed that he had scoured the field for injured soldiers ever since the battle had ended, and had assisted the field surgeons in their work. It struck her that, although she wasn’t openly wearing any colors of the lord she had fought for, he had never asked whose side she had been on.  _ It didn’t matter to him. _ Even if she had fought against him in the battle whose destruction was surrounding them, this man was willing to help her, no questions asked. Now he looked at her, impatient for her answer, as he put away his supplies. _

_ She noticed the scars of cuts and burns on his hands, and she guessed that he had fought today as well - why else would he be wearing a bandage? He had probably launched the fireball that she had seen killing the lord she had sworn allegiance to, and suffered the resulting burn in addition to losing the spell for the day, unless he had used the chain variety which would allow him to cast it several times - but also cause him several burns in turn. She didn’t see any fresh cuts on him, but if he had, say, propelled a knife into someone’s back, the resulting cut on him would also be on his back, out of sight. _

_ “Is your magic worth suffering the consequences?” she asked him quietly, nodding at his bandaged hand,  as she sat up and started to remove her breast plate to check if she was bleeding under it. She didn’t think that any of the blades hitting her armor had actually pierced it or slipped under its edge without her noticing it, but she wanted to be certain. _

_ Her question seemed to have made him uncomfortable, and he didn’t answer.  _

_ Gnawing on his lower lip, he watched as she removed her armor in front of someone she had to know was an enemy, completely trusting him after he had taken care of her leg and arm wounds. Her fingers found the spot on her ribs where the pain had been fiercest, and when he saw her flinch at her own touch, he reached out with his bandaged hand only to stop an inch away from the sweat-drenched, dust-stained fabric of her shirt. This time, with no blood on her clothes to tell them both that this was urgent, this was beyond the laws of courtesy, he waited for her wordless permission to touch her. _

_ Curious. Usually, neither medics nor those who helped them cared one whit about their patients’ sensitivities when it came to touch, yet this mage who had been fighting to kill on the enemy’s side was now concerned about touching her against her wish. _

_ Her eyes met and held his, and he was first to look away. _

_ She hesitated a moment longer, watching as he kept waiting for her response. Once she nodded, he carefully pulled up her shirt until he could look at her torso just below her right arm. An ugly bruise was spreading across her side, with its center already a dark purple. He gnawed the inside of his lower lip for a few moments, bracing himself. _

_ “This is gonna hurt. I’ll be careful, but … Can’t help it.” _

_ She nodded, preparing herself, and one of his eyebrows went up when she only hissed at his tentative touch. He was gentle in what he was doing, but it still hurt like hell. Her eyes burned with unshed tears and she clenched her teeth to keep from screaming as he ran his fingertips over her side and lower chest. _

_ “Rib’s broken, maybe two. I should wrap that - if you’ll allow me.” _

_ Lowering his hands, he let her shirt fall down to cover her again, waiting for her answer. The sweat covering her was cooling her down rapidly, and she shivered. She looked around the battlefield. They seemed to be the only ones left alive as far as the eye could see - which, admittedly, wasn’t very far, with the smoke of the battle still hanging over the uneven ground and obscuring everything beyond a twenty yard radius. A clutch of northern wyrm could have been flying in circles above and she would have been unable to see them. _

_ She weighed her options. _

_ Her lord had been killed by what she assumed had been a fireball launched by the mage in front of her. His military advisers had been clustered around him, so they were probably gone as well. The lord had been widowed when his second wife had died in childbirth a few months ago, so he was leaving behind only a fifteen year old son and heir to his keep and title. The son, from what she had seen, was a cruel, incompetent fool whom she had long decided she would not swear fealty to when the day came to do so - and relying on a coup to prevent him from succeeding his father seemed like a long stretch, with so many soldiers to carry it lying dead now. _

_ It really wasn’t that hard after all. Grabbing his hand, she let the mage help her to her feet and collect her gear. _

_ “Not here. I want to be far away when everyone realizes that the former lord died here today and the young one tries to take over.” The look in his eyes told her that stories of the young lord had apparently made the rounds already - he seemed to know what she was talking about. “Lead the way, I’ll follow, and once we’re in a safe place, I’d be grateful for your help. I’m Carol.” _

_ “Daryl.” _

.-.

She woke up with his voice, his name ringing in her ears, and her hand found him as he lay next to her in the dark cave.

For a few moments, her heart raced in her chest as her fingers touched his skin, but she willed it into submission again. He was not that kind of man. In all the time they had known each other, he had never once crossed the line with her, even in jest.

Caressing his hand once more before moving away again, she told herself to let it go, the way she always did, doing her best to ignore the pain, to ignore her heart turning in her chest as she reminded herself.

_ He does not love you back. He loves his magic, to the point where he willingly bleeds for it - but not you. _


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied Negan violence (against a character we haven't met in this story).

Dwight scrambled through the underbrush, still panting with fear, still not quite certain what had happened back there. One minute, the three men under his command had been with him, waiting for and following his orders - and the next, he had been alone, outnumbered, his men dead - and facing a mage who was willing to cast and accept the resulting damage to himself.

No way was he going to face this alone - and anyway, someone had to get word back to Negan, not just to report on their location and get reinforcements but also to warn the others that this red robe was fully prepared  perfectly ready to defend himself and his companions. Who even cared if those were the same people that had stolen from them. Anyone would do for Negan to be able to make an example of them, and here he was, with a mage and some company holed up here, so they would be it.

Running away, he found, was nerve-wracking. Never since joining his warlord had he been in this position, and it was certainly draining him. He kept expecting the mage to just  _ appear _ out of nothing, hands wreathed  bathed  in flames and ready to send them writhing around him, consume him, devour all that he was - probably because a fire spell had been the only one he had actually seen him casting, back there on the road by the cart trap.

The rational part of his mind was pretty certain that mages could not actually disappear in one place and just appear in another, with no time elapsing between the two events - but he had been there for the completely soundless and unnoticed deaths of three men under his command, and his imagination was running slightly wild at this point.

When he pushed aside several thorny brambles blocking his way, tearing the skin of his fingers to shreds, he noticed that his hands were still shaking. With mages mostly fighting in the skirmishes between lords and kings, he had never seen one in action before - not that he had actually  _ seen _ him this time around -, so their abilities were mostly mythical to the common people, and they were certainly frightening.

And why would a mage care for Negan’s slaves anyway?

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, sucking on one of his dripping fingers. “Why can’t people just mind their own business? Why does this guy have to fuck things up?”

He pushed on.

.-.

Merle was debating whether or not he should change his position, giving it away to anyone in the area at the time - but he could no longer feel his left foot on which he’d been sitting since forever and definitely needed to get his weight off it sometime soon - when he heard the bushes rustling ahead of him.

By now, it was fully dark. Most of the other members of their warband had already retired, either out in the open with nothing but their bedrolls, or in small tents that they took along on the pack horses whenever they moved camp. Those currently enjoying their leader’s favor would bed down inside the main tent at the center of the camp. Guards had been posted around the perimeter, but he had lost sight of his two neighbors in the darkness some time ago.

He was on his own for now, and just like that, the pins and needles in his foot were forgotten. He could feel his heart thundering in his chest.

Hadn’t there been a rumor about a magic user in connection with the stolen slaves? What if he had come back?

Fingering his knife, he slowly rose from the damp ground, cursing the rustling of the leaves under his feet and the bushes in which he had been hiding, and the creaking of his joints. They all sounded as loud as war horns to him in the darkness.

The night was silent again, the crackling of the last dying fires in the camp the only sound now. Maybe he had imagined -?

“Simon?” a voice called from the darkness. “Merle? You there? Anyone?”

Cursing under his breath, Merle took a single step forward, trying to penetrate the darkness ahead of him. The voice did sound familiar, and whoever was calling out for them there did know a few names, but … could he really be certain? Maybe someone was holding him hostage and forcing him to …? Then again, he hadn’t used the code word for that situation, so maybe …?

“I’m looking for Negan’s camp, are you there? I’m Dwight, and I’ve been following the trail of that group that stole our slaves.”

Now this was certainly something not everyone would know, and also detailed information that nobody would just blurt out like that under duress instead of the code word. Merle felt his knees beginning to shake with relief.

“Dwight, that you?”

The whole forest in front of him seemed to come alive now, as if from an approaching army - twigs cracking, leaves rustling, stomping feet, and then Dwight came into his field of vision, stumbling, then trying to run, his pale face and light blond hair standing out in the patches of fitful moonlight among the trees as he looked back over his shoulder every few seconds.

“Man, am I glad I’ve found ya and ya didn’t shoot me!”

“Ain’t got nothin’ to shoot with, just my knife. Where’re the others?” Merle kept looking out for the three men Dwight had taken along on his hunt, but now that the other man was standing next to him, the forest was silent again.

“We ran into a … problem,” Dwight mumbled, lowering his head to stare at his feet. “Remember someone said they saw red robes?”

Merle nodded, knots forming in his stomach. Mages were usually bad news.

“Let’s go check if Negan’s still awake so you can report to him right away. But how far back are the others?” Confused, Merle kept looking out for the three missing men of Dwight’s group.

“There’s no one left but me.”

Merle was so shocked by Dwight’s quiet statement that he stopped in his tracks. He stared at his companion. “What? Where are they? They left?”

“No, they’re … dead. He killed ‘em. The mage. There really is a mage, and he killed them, and I never even saw him do it.”

Slack-jawed, Merle set out for the center of the camp again, avoiding one of the dying fires. After several moments of silence, as they were already approaching the main tent, he finally felt up to speaking again. “He won’t be thrilled ta hear that.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it. ’m not thrilled to tell ‘im.”

Merle pulled aside the flap covering the tent’s entrance and instantly raised both hands to show he wasn’t holding a weapon. The guard on his side of the entrance reached down to his waist at once to get the knife out of his belt, even as the guard on the other side took Dwight’s dagger and cudgel.

“There’s people already sleepin’ inside, don’t be too loud!” the man next to Merle warned them.

Nodding silently, Merle pushed through the cloth curtain closing off the interior of the tent to keep out the cold. Side by side, he and Dwight stepped into the dimly lit, oppressively warm tent, the smell of unwashed bodies assaulting them. From around the edges of the tent, where several small cubicles had been curtained off, they could hear snoring, and someone was most definitely grunting, still enjoying themselves.

Negan was still awake, but already lounging on his thronelike chair. His eyes narrowed as he saw them enter, and he swung down the leg that had been hanging over the arm of his chair and leaned forward, focusing his attention on them. 

Merle’s hand went up to his collar to loosen it. He felt strangled by the stifling air in the tent and by Negan’s eyes on him. As usual when he was coming in with bad news, he felt like his soul was being flayed by those hard, cruel eyes, and not for the first time die he find himself wondering how he had ended up here, with this group, under this leader.

“Dwight!”

Negan’s voice as such wasn’t unpleasant to listen to. Deep and mellow, it could have been the voice of a father or older brother, offering support and advice. But to Merle, it seemed laced with cruelty, with a revolting delight in seeing people suffer, with a lust for power that had reached an unhealthy peak. Maybe he had missed this at first, maybe he had ignored it while it had been surfacing - but there was definitely no ignoring it any longer. Feeling uncomfortable under Negan’s unwavering gaze, Merle found himself looking at the ground as they approached the elevated chair and then stopped five feet from their leader.

“Where are my men?”

This was not going to end well, Merle knew at once.

“It’s a magic user! Remember that someone saw red robes that night? There is a neutral mage with them, and he killed the others, and he never even showed himself! It wasn’t my fault!” Dwight was trembling, Merle saw, and his voice was shaking with fear as he kept babbling on and on and on. He, too, knew the signs all too well. He knew he had ample reason to be afraid.

“Mages do not concern me.” Negan’s voice was a low growl now, no longer cold but menacing. “All I want to hear now is that he’s dead, and everyone with him is dead as well. We can’t allow random fools to take what’s ours without proper revenge, now can we?” There was still this hint of honey in his voice that made it so pleasing to the ear unless you were the one at the receiving end of his threats. Merle felt sick as the silence after Negan’s question dragged on. Everyone else who was still awake was studiously trying to appear otherwise occupied to avoid getting dragged into this mess.

“Dwight?”

Negan leaned forward even more and reached out with one hand. Almost gently, he placed one finger under Dwight’s cheek and then lifted his head so he was forced to look him in the eye. He was visibly trembling, and Merle could see his pulse racing in his neck. He just hoped he wouldn’t get to witness an even more overt display featuring Dwight’s pulse. Couldn’t the man have emerged from the forest in a different spot and met another guard? Did he  _ really _ have to lead him to the tent and come in here with him?

Unblinking, fully focused on the man in front of him, Negan raised an eyebrow.

“Dwight, are you telling me that you lost my men?”

“But there was -” Dwight’s voice was high now, shrill with fear.

“A mage, I know, you mentioned him. Did  _ I _ mention that mages do not concern me? For they don’t.” Negan’s voice lashed out at the terrified man whose face he was now squeezing between the thumb and forefinger of his extended hand. “All that concerns me is that your foolish incompetence cost me three of my men. All that  _ fucking _ concerns me -” His voice turned soft, almost gentle, cream and honey. “- is that you  _ fucking _ failed me. And you know what that means.”

He released Dwight’s chin with a vicious snap of his wrist, jerking his head to the side as he let go of him. A single tear started running down Dwight’s cheek as his lower lip began to tremble, and Merle’s heart clenched. They both knew what this meant, and Merle had never been so relieved to be alone in this group, to not be attached to anyone around him.

“Please!” Dwight fell to his knees and grabbed Negan’s feet in supplication. “Please, don’t! It’s not her fault, it’s mine!  _ It’s mine _ !” Dwight was desperate.

Negan shook him off as if he were less than a fly, and of as little consequence to him. Turning to the guard standing to the left of his chair, he made a shooing motion with his hand. “Get his wife here, now.”

“No, Negan, please! I’ve never failed you before, please don’t do this!” By now Dwight was sobbing, spittle and snot dripping off his face as he knelt on the trampled earth. Merle’s chest was aching. These displays were never easy to watch, but leaving now was not an option - he would only make himself a target as well.

Within minutes, Sherry was brought into the tent, still befuddled with sleep, her hair hanging wildly into her face in tangled curls, feet bare, dressed only in her night gown. The moment she saw Dwight kneeling in front of the empty chair, still sobbing, with Negan pacing impatiently next to him, her face contorted in fear.

“Dwight?” Her voice barely carried through the tent, but he still heard her and lifted his head, face streaked with dirt and tears, eyes red and swollen. Merle’s breath was coming in short, jagged gasps by now.

Dwight splurted a single word, probably his wife’s name, and Negan whirled around, grabbed the club leaning against one arm of his chair, and viciously slammed it into Dwight’s side, pushing him over and into the dirt.

“You will be silent!” Merle half expected Negan’s voice to tear the tent asunder. He could feel it reverberating in his bones. Everyone inside the tent - and many outside, most probably - was awake now, and at this outburst, everyone still standing quickly knelt down in submission as Negan’s eyes, hot with fury, surveyed the men and women serving him.

“I clearly established my rules when you joined me.” He seemed more quiet again now, more controlled, but Merle knew that all of this was a façade - this man never had control over himself. “And the rules are simple,” Negan continued. “You serve me in whatever function you fill best, and in turn you get food and protection. That’s it. It’s that fucking simple.”

Very slowly, he started walking toward Sherry who stood in the center of the tent, the guard who had brought her never letting go of her and not allowing her to kneel. Had Merle been a religious man he would have prayed in gratitude for having knelt down as he had been standing, with his back to her - this way he would not have to see the look of stark terror that he knew would be etched onto her face by now. Yet he still closed his eyes.

“Every once in a while, someone doesn’t follow these rules, however simple they are, and I cannot tolerate that. If everyone in this group did as they fucking pleased, there would be chaos.” He started circling Sherryand the guard, trailing one finger of his free hand over the pale skin of her face, over her shoulder, picking up a single curl of her hair. Dwight was still sobbing, unable to suppress his terror and grief. With his head bowed, Merle had no way of knowing whether any of the guards were watching the two of them, so he was unable to reach out to him, ground him, help him.

Nobody deserved this.

Negan started his second circle around Sherry, his voice silky as he continued his lecture. “We need order to survive. Without order, we will be vulnerable to our enemies, and I can’t allow that. So, whenever someone thinks he gets to disobey my fucking orders without consequence, I have to reestablish order to keep us safe.”

He completed his second circle on the last word, and stopped in front of Sherry, who was trembling violently now. “You have been profiting from this system, so I’m sure you understand, my dear.” Merle felt sick. Dwight’s sobs turned into an indistinct roar in his ears. “I appreciate that you will help me bring order back to this community.” In his mind’s eye, Merle saw him standing in front of the petite woman, towering over her, his hardwood club loosely dangling in his hand.

“Let go of her.”

Negan raised his club.


	13. Chapter 13

The sun hadn’t made it all the way over the horizon yet by the time they set out. Glenn’s breath hung in front of his face like a steamy veil with each exhale. The night at the inn and the two they had spent in the cave instead of out in the open had made him forget how cold the nights could already get at this time of year. Rubbing his hands, he pulled his cloak about himself a little tighter and then looked around for Carl to make sure he was keeping up.

Carol had given the boy her spare cloak since he hadn’t brought anything but the clothes on his back. In addition to that, she had divided up their supplies, making sure that everyone carried a little bit of everything in their own bag - bread, cheese, a waterskin. She didn’t want to risk anyone getting stranded without food and water in case the group should be forced to split up.

Daryl was leading the way, backpack slung over one shoulder, crossbow over the other, hood pulled up and hands hidden in the wide sleeves of his red robe. In the early hours of morning, just before dawn, Glenn had woken up from rustling noises and had at first avoided looking in the direction of Carol and Daryl’s bedrolls, expecting that he wouldn’t really want to see what was going on there. Instead, startled by a gasp after a few moments, he had watched her helping Daryl take off his shirt, apply some ointment from one of his corked little jars to his chest, and then dress and bandage whatever it was that she had taken care of. He couldn’t be certain in the dim light, but the skin on Daryl’s torso and arms had looked mottled and uneven, somehow.

Glenn had remembered Daryl’s words about there being a payment for every spell he used, and recalled him magically propelling a knife into the heart of one of their attackers. While having a mage on his side who seemed to be good at what he was doing, this nighttime scene had put a damper on Glenn’s enthusiasm - spell casting had suddenly seemed a lot more dangerous to the caster, not just the target.

Yet once it had been light and they had eaten a hasty breakfast before packing their gear and setting out, he hadn’t noticed any discomfort in Daryl, either about his chest injury or the burn on his hand from the attack at the overturned cart. This ointment that he used for his wounds had to be damn near magical - or else Daryl was very good at diverting attention from any hints that would have given away that he was hurt, which of course made sense as well from a tactical point of view. Giving your weaknesses away to your enemy was never a good idea.

Concentrating on their path again, Glenn found his thoughts wandering. How was it that he had become a part of this group? Neither Carol nor Daryl had ever brought up the question of where he was going, what he was planning for himself, or if he had any deadlines to meet. They were probably expecting him to bring this up if their route should divert from his own. For now, they seemed to be regarding him as a member of their team, trusting him with foraging or taking watch, never implying that, being a juggler, he might not be suited for those kinds of tasks.

He knew that they were hoping to find employment with a minor lord for the winter which sounded fine with him as well. No cold and wet days spent traveling, finding a place to stay, barely getting by on what little the villagers along his way were able to spend on the entertainment he was offering with his skills. 

Coming from an isolated farm himself, he remembered all too well the drudgery of days that were so alike during any one season that it was hard to remember what day of the week it was, and the gratitude that filled you when someone came along once or twice a year who was able to interrupt this dreariness for an hour or two before moving on. Yet he also knew that every copper thrown into the entertainer’s hat or jar was always going to be sorely missed later on, leading to a guilty conscience for indulging yourself when there was salt to buy, or a horseshoe to have forged.

For at least the tenth time since he had met them, he found himself wondering about how the mage and the warrior had met. They seemed an unlikely pair as far as their personalities went, although their skills certainly played very well off each other, with her close quarters fighting style complementing his long distance attacks. He was secretly hoping that the kid would find the courage to ask - surely he had to be just as curious as he was - or that Carol would get into storytelling mood of a night. Daryl certainly wouldn’t - the thought alone almost had Glenn snorting out loud.

Carl tripped over a root next to him, and Glenn quickly reached out to steady him and keep him from falling.

“You okay?”

The boy nodded, looking miserable, and it struck Glenn how sad and fragile he looked.

“We’ll take good care of you, you know? We’re not just going to drop you off at the nearest village and leave you to your own devices, we’re not the kind of people who would do that.” Although they had never discussed it, even when Carl had been asleep, he was certain that he was talking for all the adult members of the group here. 

Carol and her mage had instantly taken on a certain degree of responsibility for his safety after intervening to defend him against the band of robbers at the cart and had never suggested that he set out on his own again afterwards - surely they would not abandon a child, barely a teenager, in a world as dangerous as theirs, where people were killed over the clothes on their backs or a dozen coppers in their purse. Glenn trusted them and felt that he could rely on them to keep his promise - they might appear vicious and hostile at first, especially the mage, but they were still decent people.

“But I’m all alone now.” Carl’s voice was barely more than a whisper and Glenn suspected that he didn’t want their two traveling companions to overhear their conversation. He allowed himself to fall back slightly, and as Carl adapted his own pace to Glenn’s, the distance between them and the others increased. Heart aching for him in sympathy, Glenn looked over at the boy.

“I’m sure you feel like that right now, and as far as family goes, yes, you’re all alone. But one day you will have a family of your own, and family is not just the one you’re born into. Friends can become so close they can feel like family to you, so close that you would do anything for them - just like the people you’re related to by blood, and sometimes more.” Carl looked at him doubtfully. “Certainly not today or tomorrow, or even next year,” Glenn admitted. “But I guarantee that at some point, four or five years from now, you will open your eyes, look around at the new family you will have found by then, somewhere out there, and realize that you’ve made it, you’re no longer alone in this world.” Very tentatively, not quite certain that the grieving teenager would allow this level of intimacy, he reached out to place one hand on Carl’s shoulder. “And until then, you’ll have us.”

Carl’s lower lip trembled as his eyes welled up, and Glenn hastened to continue. “Come on, let’s catch up again so we don’t lose sight of them. I think they’re far more used to this than we are.”

When they reached the forest road again, Daryl looked up at the sky to check the time, gave a brief nod with a highly satisfied face, and turned left to continue on down the road. Glenn cast a confused look at Carol and she smiled at him.

“We’ll reach the ford today, and in good time. It was cold last night, but the weather will be good today - no rain, no high winds. Excellent conditions for traveling on foot.” Her hand came up to gesture off toward the south east. “There’s a keep on the other side of the river. The lady who commands it has a good reputation among mercenaries.”

When Glenn flinched at this word, she raised an eyebrow. “There is no shame in not swearing allegiance for life to any one lord,” she pointed out. “Living in one single place and never seeing other places and meeting other people is not for everyone, and it certainly isn’t for me. I have skills that I sell to the lords in whose warbands I fight, for a certain time, before moving on. This is no different from being a traveling doctor, or a peddler - or a traveling juggler.”

Glenn blushed deeply when he realized how much his reaction had hurt her - and of course the points she had made were more than valid. There was merit to what she had said, and he resolved to adjust his stance on mercenaries - after all, he was now traveling in the company of two of them and had found both of them very decent people indeed.

Up ahead, Daryl stopped to look over his shoulder and wait for the three of them to catch up to him, and then marched on.

.-.

Lady Michonne was just about to signal one of her servants to inform the cook that she was getting hungry and have something sent up for her and her accountant when there was a knock on the heavy wooden door and Axel, her personal guard, peered into the room. He still looked slightly pale - the combination of a nasty cough and a persistent fever that had hit the entire region hadn’t spared her keep and many had been ill over the past two weeks - and she called him in so he could stand near the fire while he was making his report.

“A group of travelers has just come in, Lady Michonne - a warrior, a neutral mage, and a juggler.” After a moment’s pause, his eyes widened slightly. “Oh, and a boy - a teenager.”

Hunger forgotten, she put down her quill and leaned forward. “Why have they come here?”

“The mage said they were seeking employment over the winter - him and the warrior as members of your warband, and the juggler for entertainment. The boy could help in the kitchen or with cleaning, I guess. Are you willing to receive them?”

“Well, since it’s almost getting dark already and I’m the only one who can decide whether they get to stay or leave, I had better see them. Give me a moment to finish my letters - you can stay with us to warm yourself up a bit keep me company .” One corner of her mouth quirked upward as Axel looked relieved and took another step closer to the fireplace. “Have the braziers been put up in the hallway?” 

Her slender, tapered fingers carefully rolled her final letter into a tube. She wound one of her red sealing ribbons around it, then held her wax stick into the flame of the candle standing next to her for this very purpose. Once its end had softened and was getting runny, she pressed it to the spot where the ribbon was folded on itself on the edge of the sheet of parchment, then put it back into its box and pressed her seal - a katana with a highly detailed wrapped handle - into the soft mass until it had hardened.

She briefly closed her eyes to relish the slightly burned smell of the wax as she listened to her guard’s answer.

“They have, Lady Michonne, and they have a noticeable effect, but the hallway got  was  _ very _ cold last night, so it will take some time to get warm, obviously. We appreciate the braziers very much, however - I have never served a lord who cared to warm the keep’s hallways.”

“I want you all healthy and in good shape, and if heating the hallways is all it takes for that right now, then I will of course heat the hallways.” She gave him a kind smile. “I’m glad to see you’re better. But don’t overdo it, please. Get the Captain to relieve you if you start feeling bad again.” 

Once her seal had hardened, she handed this letter plus the other three she had written over to Axel. “Would you take these to Morgan and ask him to send them by eagle? The addresses are all written on the letters.”

Axel nodded. “Of course, Lady Michonne, I will do that.” With one last regretful look at the fireplace, he headed for the door.

“Once you’ve taken the letters to Morgan, you can bring the strangers here - and stay with me while I am talking to them.” The man’s relieved smile as he nodded respectfully did not escape her notice.

A few minutes later there was another knock on the door and he was back again, holding the door for the group seeking shelter. They filed in one by one, each of them passing Axel with a polite nod before facing forward, facing the lady of the keep.

The first one through the door was a slight woman with pale blue eyes and dark hair with silvery strands peppered through it. She was in full warrior gear, clearly worn, used, broken in, worn with confidence - a force to be reckoned with. She wore a sword in the scabbard on her hip and a shield tied to the top of the pack on her back - clearly an experienced and accomplished fighter.

Next came a younger man, obviously hailing from the northwest, more stockily built, with dark, slanted eyes and golden skin. His jet black, straight hair shimmered in the light from the candle and the fire. He, too, was carrying a pack, and from the way he was gently kneading his hands as if to keep them warm - she should really have a few more braziers put up in the hallway - she took it that he was the juggler. He stopped one step behind the woman, facing Michonne.

The boy was next, very pale, with a gaunt face and haunted, hollow eyes. Clearly, he had recently seen things that he was still struggling to process, and she wondered what he would tell her if she were to ask. He clearly trusted his companions, however, since he instantly sought out the juggler, standing next to him.

Finally, a living flame seemed to enter the room as the mage walked in with long, confident strides. The hood of his red robe was still up, the shadows thrown by it hiding his face from view. She saw the strap of a backpack on one shoulder, and the tip of a loaded crossbow peeking over the other, its strap probably buried in the folds of his robe. In his right hand he was holding a shoulder-high wooden staff, but he didn’t seem to require it for walking - a caster’s staff. Skirting the boy, he confidently moved into the spot next to the woman. Standing perfectly still, he reached up with both hands, his right still holding the staff, to slide back his hood to reveal a narrow face with high cheek bones, scruffy, dark blond hair, and a chin and cheeks that hadn’t been shaved in several days. Blue eyes, warm but piercing, met hers.

_ An interesting group _ , she thought.  _ Now let’s see what they’re made of _ .


	14. Chapter 14

It was painful to be around Dwight in the wake of Sherry’s death.  So far, the orders he had been given - get food from the supply tent, clean Negan’s boots, get some clothes of his to the women for washing - had been simple and he had had no difficulties in following them. What Merle was afraid of was the first complex order he’d be given, for he wasn’t certain that Dwight was in any state to perform tasks more complicated than getting a bowl of hot stew for Negan, at least for the time being.

He had made sure that Dwight had eaten for breakfast, and taken some water. Before leaving for the large tent, he also made sure to give him several simple tasks to keep him occupied - it was the only way to ensure that nobody would give him anything complex to do since idle hands were not tolerated in Negan’s camp. It was based on the premise that every member of the community had to contribute to the well-being of all, and anyone who was unable to do that was risking to be sent off with little more than the clothes on their backs - and getting sent away was the lucky option. Right now, Dwight seemed to be unable to take care of himself, so Merle did it for him.

Had anyone suggested this, he would have snapped his neck.

On entering the tent he kept his head bowed as if in respect. In truth, all he wanted was to avoid looking at the stain that the previous night’s events had left on the tent’s floor. Openly avoiding the sight was not an option, however, for Negan passionately hated “cowards”, anyone who dared to show emotions, most of all compassion or love, and anyone who displayed dislike or disgust for any form of violence.

Negan was not sitting on his “throne” but at the dinner table set up slightly behind and to the right of the ridiculous chair, his teeth tearing out huge chunks of meat from the spit-roasted haunch of some small animal. One of the wives was sitting on his lap so he could eat while simultaneously fondling her.

_ Sherry. A few days before, that had been Sherry _ .

Swallowing a mouthful of bile, Merle finally passed the center of the tent where he knew it would have happened, several eternities after flipping aside the entrance flaps. On hearing Merle’s approaching footsteps, Negan looked up from his plate and the woman on his lap. His chin was glistening with the juice and fat running from the meat. His fingers were liberally sprinkled with small bits of meat from when he had apparently torn it off the bone with his fingers instead of his teeth.

“What brings you before me today?” he asked pompously without  swallowing, treating Merle to a view of his mouth stuffed with meat and potatoes. The sheen of the candles placed in front of him highlighted several small crumbs flying out and spraying the table as he spoke. It was all Merle could do to keep himself from grimacing in disgust.

“I’ve been thinking about Dwight’s report some more -”

Negan scoffed. “If you want to call that a report … But go ahead and get to the fucking point. Don’t waste my time.” Grabbing the mug next to his plate, he gulped down several mouthfuls of whatever was in it - probably ale, Merle guessed.

“Since there does seem to be a magic user, I was thinking that maybe we could capture instead of kill him so he can work for us - to make up for what he stole, plus he might be an asset if anyone comes at us.” He gestured vaguely, indicating the camp around them. “We don’t have that much that we can do long-range, but we’ve all heard the stories of mages throwing fireballs and shit like that, so he might come in handy.”

Negan had stopped chewing and was regarding Merle thoughtfully. “Seems I knew what I was doin’ when I made you one of my lieutenants,” he mused. “You’re definitely one of the few who use their fucking brains.” He dropped the haunch, mostly bare now, and started licking his fingers. “But how do you suggest we punish him? He stole from us, those girls would have made us lots of money.”

Having known Negan for three years now, Merle knew full well that he would not be satisfied with a beating or with locking the guy up once they had caught him. Punishment, in Negan’s book, entailed rather more drastic measures, so it was to those that Merle resorted.

“We could cut something off him,” he suggested. “That would teach him to behave himself, to not start shit again once he’s healed and is no longer locked in a cage.” A distant part of him, the part that had been horrified at the displays of casual, gratuitous violence he had witnessed in this group from the very start, recoiled at the words, but outwardly, he remained calm and composed. Under no circumstances must he allow Negan to see that he still found much of what he saw here disgusting and vile.

Reaching around the woman on his lap, Negan tore off a fist sized piece of bread from the loaf next to his plate and ripped off a bite-sized chunk with his teeth. His hot, restless eyes remained on Merle the whole time as he grabbed his mug again to wash the bread down.

“Really beginning to like the way you think here.” His voice sounded lazy, the words coming slowly, as viscous as honey. Maybe that was something stronger than ale in his mug, Merle thought. “Cutting off little bits, but nothing vital, until he fucking comes around to seeing shit my way, I like the sound of that!” He banged his mug on the table, hard enough to make the plate jump and the knife slide off the table. The woman on his lap instantly got up to retrieve the knife, a terrified look on her face. “More wine!” Negan yelled, and one of the women sitting hunched over in the back of the tent hastily got up and left for the supply tent. “Want some as well? Got a whole cask full during our last raid.”

Sitting down for breakfast or lunch or whatever this meal was supposed to be was the last thing that Merle wanted, honestly, but of course being honest with Negan got you nowhere at all, so he nodded and pulled out a chair.

“Bring out a mug for my lieutenant, what’s takin’ ya so long?”

.-.

Although the two nights in the cave hadn’t been that bad, especially when compared to sleeping out in the open, Carol believed she had never slept this good in her life. They were new in this keep, the last people to arrive, yet each of them had their own small room with a bed and a table and chair in it, a wooden shelf to place their belongings in, and a small window. Hers looked out over the moat, and she had looked out so often while getting washed up and dressed that she was certain by now that there were fish in the moat, maybe even the kind you could eat.

Yet while it had been nice to have a private space to herself, if she was perfectly honest she had to admit that she had missed her companions while going to bed and during her morning routine. She had become used to Daryl always being around ever since they had met, and Glenn and Carl were such a pleasure to be with that, although she hadn’t known them for nearly as long as the mage who had saved her on the battlefield, she found herself on the verge of addressing each of them several times as well as she prepared herself for the day.

Getting used to people, allowing them into your life, was hard at first, but letting in these three had certainly given her a lot. Glenn’s easygoing, kind friendship made her feel light and joyful, and taking care of Carl had brought out a softer, more open side in her that she hadn’t anticipated. She was glad that they had taken in the two of them when most people out on the road these days would have walked right past either of them, not batting an eye at Glenn getting assaulted and robbed, or at Carl losing his mother and his home.

And Daryl …

The emotions she felt when thinking about Daryl were more complex than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She didn’t believe that he would ever love anything or anyone as much as he loved his magic, yet he was certainly kinder to her than anyone else had ever been, and when he suspected that someone might want to harm her, he surprised her every time with his vicious defense of her - not that she needed it.

When they had been shown to their rooms the night before after their interview with the lady of the keep, Daryl had pushed past her and into her room as their guide had been opening the door, his right hand, with the healing burn on his palm still visible, held out in front of him, ready to cast his fireball spell again in case anyone was hiding in there. Ready to defend her. Ready to take any attack meant for her, on himself.

Ready to …

_ No. _

She must never think of him dying. Not for her, not for anything or anyone else.

The thought of Daryl dying hurt something deep inside her that would never heal once he did die, she knew.

For while Daryl might not and might never love her, Carol knew that she loved him.

.-.

Daryl hadn’t slept all night.

In his mind, he had gone over the first meeting with their new lord again and again - and had just been unable to fall asleep, without the sound of  _ her _ breathing next to him in the darkness. He’d kept telling himself it was useless. Kept telling himself that she would never see the kind of man in him that she might want to spend her life with, once she decided to settle down.

_ Just give it a rest. Forget her. You’re nothing to her but a few good spells and a few bolts. _

But it hurt.

So his mind had kept circling back to their interview over and over again, to their new lord. Or Lady? Michonne.

She was impressive, and from the way she conducted herself during the interview, she was someone he could respect. She’d been seated at a table next to her steward, several rolled up letters next to her, their seals broken, and a few sheets of parchment - new, never before used parchment! - on the other side, plus a quill, quill holder, jar of ink, and a candle with a stick of sealing wax lined up in front of her. 

They had interrupted her work.

His eyes had gone to the small window. Dusk had fallen outside while they had been waiting for her to receive them, the light had been failing fast, and if they had been turned away, they would have had to find boarding for the night with night already approaching, which would have given any request uttered by them that much more urgency and would have made them that much more vulnerable.

She had made time for them so they would still have enough time to find a room in case she was not going to take them in.

A decent person who didn’t depend on power trips.

Folding her hands on the table, she had watched them file in, cold, tired, hungry - first Carol, then Glenn, then Carl, and finally, Daryl. She had assessed each of them from the moment they first entered the room, trying to see beyond the surface, beyond the outfit, beyond the weapons. Trying to see the person hiding inside, their heart, their soul. Their true intent.

Her task had been a nearly impossible one, as always when people came here seeking acceptance into her warband or the workforce of her keep. On the one side, she had to take into account how useful they could be to her, as fighters, as cooks, as stable boys, as guards.

On the other hand, every new person she took in posed a risk not just to herself but to everyone already living here - and she had to be able to tell the good ones from the bad, to keep herself, her people, and the town around the keep, safe from those who would take advantage or even murder everyone. And she had to do it in the time it took to interview them.

To make her task a little easier, he had swiped back the hood of his robe and managed to look her in the eyes on entering the room, and her gaze had touched him like a living thing, searching, piercing, questioning. Her dark eyes had met his, the dark, smooth skin around them tightening as she had taken in his staff, his robe, the pouches on his belt.

“Who are you?”

One by one, they had introduced themselves - Carol, the warrior, Glenn, the juggler, Carl, ready to take on any work she chose around the keep, or to enter her warband and start training as a warrior.

And Daryl, the neutral mage.

“Carol,” she had said calmly after Daryl had introduced himself, beckoning to Carol who had stepped up to the table. “Take off your gloves, please.”

Carol had complied, tugging off her gloves and holding them in her left.

“In which hand do you usually hold your sword?”

“I am right-handed, my lady.” There had been nothing humble about Carol’s answer. She knew her own value. She knew that she was good at what she did. She was brave, and strong, and had an eye and a mind for tactics. She knew where to stand at what time, and how to swing her weapon to catch her opponent off guard. Her eyes never leaving Michonne’s, she had held out her right hand, palm up.

After looking at her hand across the table for a few moments, Michonne had gestured for her to step around the table and to her side so she could get a closer look. Carol had seen no reason to disobey her and had slowly approached her, making sure that the guard standing next to the fireplace could see that she was not holding a weapon. Daryl had felt himself tensing up.

“May I?” The dark voice that would pronounce their verdict had sent shivers down Daryl’s back as the lady of the keep had raised one hand and then stopped short of grasping Carol’s right. The warrior nodded. Very gently, Michonne had run one finger over the callouses on Carol’s palm and fingers.

“You have seen a lot of fighting, yet I see few scars,” she had noted.

“Daryl has -” Carol stopped. At that moment, they had had no way of knowing whether they would be taken in or sent packing. Carol hadn’t wished to give away the fact that Daryl’s salves and tinctures  _ worked _ , and much better than the gunk you could buy at apothecaries, and she hadn’t wanted to give anyone who heard her statement any ideas. From what they had seen so far, Lady Michonne was fierce and determined, but there was nothing about her that had screamed “Murderer!” or “Thief!” - but Carol had wanted to play it safe nonetheless; after all, who knew what her men might come up with?

Daryl was certain that Carol had seen in Michonne’s eyes what he himself had seen there: She was honest, and open - a woman of honor.

The candlelight had glinted on Lady Michonne’s richly dark brown skin as her elegant hand had grasped the war-hardened one that Carol had still been holding out to her.

“Taking care of each other, are you? I like that.” There had been a silken quality to her voice then which could have indicated that Carol’s callouses alone had earned them a place in this keep. But then Michonne had let go of Carol’s hand and signaled to Glenn.

“What do you have to offer? Juggling?” Her voice had taken on an imperious tone, even though she had only been sitting on a simple wooden chair.

“I could maybe join your court as an … entertainer?”

Daryl had winced inwardly at this statement - no, not a statement; it had been a question, and a hesitant one at that.

_ Glenn, if you want to get anywhere in life, if you want the recognition you deserve, you need to properly promote yourself. _

“Well, I wish to be entertained then. Show off your talents.” She had leaned against the backrest of her chair, open for whatever routine Glenn would have worked out for presenting it tonight.

“I need my -” Glenn had gestured over his shoulder and at his backpack. “I need to get out some tools - my kerchiefs, my rope, my plates. I don’t really have a program worked out, but I’m sure I would be able to train an apprentice.” With an awkward movement, Glenn had swung his backpack down, untied the flap, and started rummaging through it. 

Once he had started juggling, and pulling the satin squares out of his sleeves, his nose, and Lady Michonne’s ears, the entire room had been laughing helplessly, and she had nodded after maybe five minutes of this.

She had skipped Carl, seeing in the boy’s eyes that he was wrestling fierce demons and didn’t need unsettling right now.

But Daryl …

Daryl was another story. He had seen that she’d noticed that his eyes were betraying some of his past, but in a grown man that had never been a reason not to question him. She had held his gaze, but this encounter had been business, nothing more, so he hadn’t backed down from her. He had met her stare for stare, until she had nodded at him with grudging respect.

She had deliberately taken the time to slide back on her chair, put one leg over the other, and fold her hands over her stomach, both elbows on the arms of her chair - a demonstration of how unconcerned she was about a staff-carrying, actively spell-casting mage in her private space. Every look, every movement, every moment of continued silence, had been a very deliberate jab at him, multiple small attempts to make him react first.

He had allowed the skin around his eyes to crinkle with suppressed mirth, but that had been about it. He had not wanted to give her the satisfaction of seeing him submit right from the start. Submission was for later, when he would actually have a reason to submit to her, once he had gained her trust and respect - and she, his. Once she knew how much him submitting to her really  _ meant _ .

“So you are the magic wielder my guard has announced.”

With him wearing a neutral mage’s robe and carrying a staff, this had just been stating the obvious, so he hadn’t answered her.

“Are you just wearing this to be safe, or are you actually a trained mage casting harmful spells?”

This had been an insult of the highest order, yet he had kept his anger in check, much to his own surprise.

“I was trained by the Southern Order for five years, after my parents and my brother died in a fire. Someone found me in the rubble and took me to them for treatment. They took me in and trained me after I’d healed.” He recalled Glenn’s eyes widening, probably because this had been more information about himself in three sentences than he had given the man in the four days they had spent traveling together.

The lady of the keep had nodded approvingly at his answer.

“I’ve heard good things about the Southern Order. They seem to be taking their responsibility seriously - after all, by the time their students finish their training they can wipe out half an army with their powers, so I am all for teaching them how to use their abilities wisely and wield their power with discretion.” He had taken note of the moment her eyes had found his crossbow, resting across his back next to his pack. “You carry additional weapons?”

“You never know what you might come across on the road these days - and my powers are not always the best tool to use, so I like to have others to choose from.” He had met her probing gaze, but she hadn’t asked him any further questions - and after another few moments of silent contemplation, toying with her quill, she had looked up to meet Daryl’s eyes again.

“I will take you in for the winter, all four of you - as a warrior, a warrior mage, an entertainer, and a house servant. You will be housed in the east wing, we have free rooms there, and Andrea, my personal advisor, will show you to them. If you need anything - towels, soap, an additional blanket -, let her know and she will show you where  how  to get what you need in the future.”

Daryl had perked up. This sounded like a pretty decent setup, better than any they’d had before. He didn’t know about Glenn, but he and Carol had certainly fared worse in the past. After several bad employments in a row, they seemed to have finally found a lord - or rather, a lady - who actually deserved loyalty.

“You’ll be picked up tomorrow morning, shown to our common room, where you can get and take your meals in company if you wish, and then be taken around the keep for orientation. Your first day will be for settling in. From day two onward, you will be expected to show up at your respective service stations in accordance with the schedule that will be set up for you.” She had dipped her quill into the ink well, taking one of the sheets of pristine parchment from her stack. For several minutes, the only sounds had been the scratching of the nib on the paper, a variety of sounds from inside the keep, and the cawing of the birds outside.

Once she had finished writing down her instructions, she had gestured toward the guard rubbing his hands over the fire, and he had nodded and left to return two minutes later with a blonde woman roughly as tall as Carol, and as slightly built. Her brilliant green eyes had taken in the four strangers in the center of the room - Daryl had stepped back in line with Carol while the lady had been writing - and then marched up to the table and around it. Michonne had looked up at her, and Daryl could have sworn that he had seen something spark between them as their eyes had met, there and gone again in less than a heartbeat.

“Andrea, would you show them to four of the rooms in the east wing so they can get rid of their baggage, and provide them with dinner? Tomorrow, I need you to take them on a tour of the keep, and provide them with schedules.” She had handed her advisor the sheet of parchment with her instructions on it. “Here’s everything you need to know. I’ll be waiting with dinner once you’ve set them up for the night.”

And that had been that. She had nodded at the group one final time and had then gone back to her letters, while Andrea had led them out.

A decent lord.

And maybe a place to stay for good.


	15. Chapter 15

Merle estimated that, based on Dwight’s disjointed ramblings over the past five days, they had to be two or three days behind the mage they were following between Dwight’s return trip to the camp and the war band’s trek following the trail that Dwight had followed as well.

They had meanwhile reached the woods where the rest of Dwight’s party had supposedly been killed by the mage or the people he was with. As they had approached the tree line, Merle had suggested to Negan that they search for survivors - maybe Dwight had been mistaken to think that the three men who had been with him were dead, maybe nothing had happened at all and they had just gotten lost after getting separated from him and maybe each other, or they had just been injured.

Negan, however, had not been thrilled by the suggestion.

“And here I was, thinkin’ you were one to actually use the fucking brains the gods saw fit ta give ya.” Negan’s voice had been dripping with scorn, and Merle had felt like a cockroach about to be squashed under his cold, cruel gaze. “It’s been what, five fucking days since he came back, tellin’ us that everyone had been killed?”

Merle nodded. “Five.”

“And in all that time we have been traveling toward this place, on the route Dwight took, yet we didn’t encounter them. I would guess they’d know to follow a road, wouldn’t you?” Swallowing, Merle had nodded. “So, I’d rule out the ‘Dwight hallucinated all of this because he was high on whatever he was smokin’’ idea. What else does that leave us with?” His eyes had been pinning Merle down like an insect in a collector’s glass case.

“They only got injured.” His voice, Merle had thought, sounded reedy even to himself. His heart had been in his throat - probably it was the lump that he didn’t manage to swallow. “And were unable to make it back without help.”

“So -” Negan had waved his arm at the looming forest in a grandiose, theatrical gesture and Merle had belatedly realized that they had meanwhile drawn an audience to which Negan was now performing. “Look around. Tell me what you see. I see a fucking forest, and foothills, and fucking mountains. Not much else, like, say, a village or a fucking town - or even a single fucking homestead.”

By then, Merle had found himself unable to speak, fully expecting to become the next spectacle as payment for opening his stupid mouth. “No, nothing but the forest,” he had managed to croak.

“If that is so, if there is indeed nothing but a fucking forest anywhere near here - tell me how three injured men should have survived out in the open without supplies of any kind to take care of their wounds, without food, without water.” His cold eyes had found Dwight in the crowd that had gathered around them, and the man had shrunk back, instantly looking at the ground in deference.

“And without anyone else to take care of them, without being able to take care of themselves, what would have fucking happened to these three potentially injured men over a period of five fucking days?” He had punched Merle’s shoulder with the hand that had been gesturing toward the forest, looking at him expectantly. “Show me you can use your fucking brains at least a little bit.”

“They -” Merle’s voice had faltered, and he had cleared his throat in a desperate attempt to cover his fear. “They would probably have died.”

“ _ Probably _ !” The sarcasm in Negan’s voice had been sufficient to cut stone. “I would fucking think so as well, my dear Merle Dixon. So why -” and with this he had gotten into Merle’s face, almost close enough for their foreheads to touch - “should we expend any resources, as in, time, man power, food, water, by wasting them on a search that we know would be  _ fucking pointless _ ?!”

Toward the end of the sentence, his voice - a low, menacing growl until then - had become a furious roar that had had nearly everyone in the group around them shrink back in fear. Dwight had started to sob and the men around him had made a point of moving away from him, isolating him in a wide, empty circle.

“We … we shouldn’t,” Merle had managed, lowering his eyes.

“Ye’re damn right, we fucking shouldn’t!” Negan’s hand had landed on his shoulder like a ton of bricks. “Maybe leave the thinking to me for a while, if you don’t mind, until your brains are sorted out again.”

They had then taken a short break while Negan had consulted with the scouts returning to the group just then. There had been lots of gesturing, and at one point both Negan and the scouts had surveyed the whole group, including their ten horses plus the three carts. After that, the scouts had briefly put their heads together, whispering among themselves, before one of them had said, “Yes, it’s large enough to fit all of us, and our gear.”

After some more gesturing, the scouts had nodded and moved on ahead again, while Negan had turned around to face the group.

“Our two friends have found a nice place for us to stay in for the winter,” he began. “It’s not too far from here, so we can continue our search for our mage who’s cost us so much money. And as a bonus -” His eyes were gleaming now. Clearly, he was enjoying himself immensely. “It’s more or less on top of this road to the ford, so we will get to rob travelers all winter long from a safe, warm keep.” Spreading his arms, he looked around at everyone in the group as if expecting applause.

So the group set out again, at a much slower pace than the scouts so the supply carts and the pack horses could keep up. Merle noticed Dwight looking about himself fearfully as they entered the forest. He had no idea what frightened the man - to him, it was a perfectly normal forest, with birds singing, the leaves on the ground rustling as they shuffled through them, one after the other, and the occasional hammering of a woodpecker.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

So what was Dwight so afraid of?

“Why’re ya so nervous?” he asked finally after several minutes had passed and Dwight didn’t seem to calm down yet.

“He could be anywhere!” 

Merle rolled his eyes at the panic in Dwight’s voice. “Why should he have stayed in an empty forest for five days? That’s how long it’s been since you came back to camp - dunno how long it took ya to get there.”

Dwight gave him a panicked look. “I ran,” he whispered. “He killed them without a sound. Never even saw ‘em falling, no idea where he even did it. Never saw any bodies, either. Gone. Just gone.” The look in his eyes was frantic, and Merle began to ask himself if the encounter with the mage and the experience with his long-distance fighting skills might have messed with Dwight’s mind somehow.

“Gotta think rational here, man. He killed three of ya, and then you turned tail and ran.” Raising his eyes, he instantly warded off any protest Dwight might have wanted to voice about this way of putting it. “Not blamin’ ya, either, ‘s prob’ly what every single one of us woulda done  if  with shit like that goin’  went  down.”

Merle vaguely gestured at the road ahead and behind them. “Look at this ‘ere road. Didn’t meet a soul today, and we been on it since daybreak. So how much entertainment would he have gotten, lurkin’ here?”

Dwight shook his head, fear in his eyes as he looked about to check if anyone was spying on them. “What if he just gets a thrill out of killin’ people?”

“Nah, man.” Merle clapped him on the shoulder and Dwight flinched away from him, a wild look in his eyes. “You see anyone but a handful of people gettin’ high on goin’ on a killin’ spree? What are the chances that this random mage we come across is the same?” Dwight gave him a thoughtful glance, but still kept scanning the forest around them. “‘sides, he’s neutral, so there’s that. Now, if he wore black robes, that would be different, but a Red Robe? Nope.”

Dwight seemed to calm down slightly, and Merle started concentrating on their surroundings again, taking in the crispness of the air with the first nip of winter in it already, the sounds of wildlife around them, the muffled, breathless conversations of his comrades in arms. The day was cold but sunny, no clouds in the sky, threatening rain - so why was his heart not light, and why was he feeling this longing ache inside?

What was it that he truly wished for?

.-.

The sky to the west was a sea of fire as they entered the courtyard of the keep. The carts rattled, the hooves of their handful of horses made high, ringing noises on the rough cobblestones as they cut through the soggy moss that had grown over them, and the conversations that people had been having out on the road to keep their minds occupied subsided as they filed in, looking in awe at the massive walls protecting the yard, at the forbidding dark keep hunkering down in the center of the circle.

Once they were all inside, Negan ordered four men to test the portcullis and make sure especially that it could be cranked up again as well once it was down, and that the chains and pulleys were not too badly rusted so the mechanism wouldn’t likely break with them all locked up inside. When the portcullis proved serviceable, probably because the mechanism was protected by a metal-clad housing covering the crank and gear, and all but the part of the chain that was exposed even when the gate was down, he ordered the portcullis closed all the way for the night.

Two men lighted torches and then cautiously opened the main gate of the keep to explore if it was safe to move into. They were gone for several minutes, with the light of their firebrands visible through the narrow windows set high into the walls and their voices calling out to each other echoing out into the courtyard.

Two more men checked out the small stable off to the side - with the nights getting very cold already, and the grass and bushes already white with frost at dawn, they would certainly have preferred to put the horses into the stable for the night, instead of leaving them out in the open or taking them along into the keep.

After several long minutes, one of the two men who had inspected the keep appeared at the entrance again and called out that the ground floor was safe and dry and they could start moving in. At this news, the tense silence that had held the crowd of forty people gave way to sighs of relief and joyful laughter.

The handful of riders moved the horses over toward the stable to get out of the way. The carts were directed toward the entrance so the gear and supplies that were being transported on them wouldn’t have to be carried over too long a distance, and everyone started pitching in to unload them.

The stable, despite a few rotting roof beams, was declared safe enough to put the horses in for now, but repairs would have to be made if they wanted to stay over the winter and not just for a few nights. Four people started unloading the horses and then put them up in the stable with water from the well, which was found to still hold fresh, unspoiled water, and with a small bag of grain for each of them.

Merle found himself first unloading one of the carts - and casting longing glances at the fire that someone had started for cooking in the large open fireplace at one end of the hall they were moving into - and then setting up his own gear along a wall not too far away from the fire. Negan had decided that for now, they would concentrate on moving everyone inside and finding a warm spot to sleep for the night for all members of the group, and that exploring the rest of the keep, the upper stories, the root cellar, and the battlements and watchtowers, could wait until the next day. Once the entire building had been declared safe and they knew what number of rooms they had at their disposal, they would start assigning individual living quarters  rooms  to everyone.

By the time all supplies and gear had been brought in and the horses and carts were safely housed in the stable, well away from the rotting beams, two of Negan’s wives had prepared a large kettle of hot stew over the fire in the hearth - thick and rich with beans, potatoes and carrots, and even strips of bacon. Settling down on his bedroll with a bowl of stew and a chunk of bread, far away from the spot where Negan had had his ludicrous chair set up to hold court in the hall of a keep like an actual lord, he started shoveling food into his mouth and relished the sensation when his stomach stopped growling. 

The hall was getting warmer from the fire and the people settled in it, the door kept out the cold of the night, and Merle wondered if this might be it - could he adjust to a life like this, life in a keep, under a warlord who, while he valued some of the things Merle was bringing to his team, still terrified him? A warlord with erratic mood swings, prone to cruel methods of punishing his people for the slightest mistake?

Or would he have to use this break - for life in a keep was certainly going to be a lot easier on him than life on the road - to think about a way of getting away from all of this?


	16. Chapter 16

“We definitely need to replace the chain of the drawbridge and the portcullis before the first snow. I won’t have my men crawling around on the battlements and pulling up the pulleys when there’s ice and snow everywhere. They need safe footing to work, they’re carrying heavy tools, we need to think of their safety.” The steward looked around at all of them. “This has to be done next week, while we can be certain of good weather, or we will have to wait until spring. And we need to go over the bridge surface again as well - when it rains there are large puddles on it, so we’d get ice there with frost. We’ll need to plane it down before winter, I’d schedule that for the week after next, when the chains have been replaced.”

They were all seated around the large table in Lady Michonne’s reception room, discussing preparations for the coming winter. All the craft masters as well as the war band had been assembled, for they needed to talk not just about the work to be done but also about protecting the keep while the portcullis was up or the drawbridge down for several days in a row without any way of operating them - and about protecting the workers and keeping them safe.

Daryl was leaning against the wall, huddled in his robe, the hood down around his shoulders, staff in hand. While he was listening to and concentrating on what was being said, his eyes were on Carol, seated at the table opposite the keep’s lady, pointing out good vantage points on the map on the table for the additional guards they were going to post while the keep was vulnerable.

Earlier in the day, before the official start of the meeting, he had privately told Lady Michonne about his ability to recruit the local wildlife to look out for approaching people and warn him about them, and without missing a beat she had accepted his offer to do this while the bridge and gate were out of commission. A surprised look that this was possible had been her only reaction, and he assumed that maybe she wasn’t trusting him on this and first wanted to see this for herself before commenting on it any further.

Daryl was angry that Carol would be among the guards deployed outside the keep, but of course that was the lady’s prerogative. This was Carol’s life, it was her choice, and he got no say in that. He had no claim over her. Yet he was already getting anxious, thinking about her out there on night watch, and he knew he was going to hate every minute of it. He just hoped that the craftsmen planning and executing the work on the keep’s defenses knew what they were doing and would keep the time spent on this to the absolute minimum possible.

He needed Carol safe inside the keep.

.-.

The glass plate, glowing bright red in the ray of sunshine hitting it through one of the narrow windows, spun on the slender staff, jumping, dancing, turning, submitting to his control. He could still feel the coil of fear in his stomach, thinking of tonight, could still feel his palms getting wet when he remembered the Lady calling him to her rooms earlier that day.

“We’ll have visitors tonight, and I’ve heard that you’re good - several people seem to have watched you at practise.” She had given Glenn a brilliant, encouraging smile when he’d blushed. “So I would like you to be part of tonight’s entertainment. We’ll have a harp player who is coming through and will play as payment for her stay, and my own flutist will play, but I’d like something light as well, so I would prefer something that includes the audience and makes them laugh.”

At her expectant look, he had cleared his throat.

“Ah, of course, I can prepare a program to suit your needs, I love including the audience. If I could just ask one … favor?” He blushed even more, briefly meeting her eyes and then looking down again. She nodded, and he forged on. “I’d appreciate if I could practise in the hall where you will entertain your guests tonight.” After a moment’s thought, he added hastily, “I realize there will be people there, cleaning, setting up the fireplace, setting the table - but that’s okay. I just need to get the the … feel … of the room, if that makes any sense.”

Her warm smile had set him at ease immediately. “It does, I’ve heard this from many artists who have performed for me. The room is yours for the day as long as you don’t disrupt preparations there. You realize that everyone else needs to get their work done as well.”

Now here he was, in a large, high hall with an open fireplace high enough for him to stand in, probably large enough for setting up a small table complete with chairs inside it, long tables already set up along the three sides of the room facing the hearth, with benches behind them. The maids were busy setting the tables with plates and goblets, knives and forks. One kitchen boy was sweeping the floor, and a heap of fresh sweetgrass rushes was waiting by the door to be spread.

And Glenn stood at the center of it all, spinning four of his precious glass plates on their thin staffs as he picked another one from the quiver that he kept them in and started moving it in time with the others. He had obtained permission for Carl to help him, so the boy was standing next to Glenn, holding the rest of his plates, and at Glenn’s nod, he held out one of them and Glenn moved the staff under it without breaking his rhythm.

The staff touched the plate, and Glenn nodded again.

Carl gingerly let go of the plate, holding his breath.

The plate started spinning, and Glenn raised the staff along with the others.

“YES!” Carl shouted enthusiastically, badly startling Glenn who barely managed to get his plates back under control again after a violent flinch. He brought them to a stop, one after the other, neatly setting them down on the small stack in Carl’s hands. Once all the plates were safely back on the table closest to them, Glenn rounded on Carl.

“I almost dropped  _ all  _ of them!” He was still shaking. “What would I have done tonight without my plates? My staffs could have broken! I’d have to have new ones made, and I’d never get them in time for tonight, with time to practise!”

He ran his hands through his hair, letting out a shaky sigh. Carl’s dejected face hurt him like a knife through the heart, and he clapped the boy’s shoulder to let him know he wasn’t angry with him.

“Maybe we should take a break. Have something to eat, do something fun, then be back here in an hour.”

Carl nodded and left while Glenn looked around the room at all the people bustling about  around  to get it ready for the night’s feast. One of the girls caught his eye. She seemed to be taller than him, but then, he thought ruefully, he  _ was _ on the short side himself. Both Carol and Daryl were slightly taller than him, and Carl seemed to be catching up.

The girl was holding a stack of earthenware plates and setting them on the tables lined up next to him - in fact, she was approaching the table his own glass plates were sitting on right now. Looking at her face, earnest with concentration on her work, made something stir inside him, and his heart started beating painfully.

_ Oh no, you’re not falling in love here, are you? The lady won’t appreciate that! _

Blushing, he greeted her as she set a plate down on the table exactly opposite from where he was standing, and she looked up, her green eyes meeting his deep brown ones.  _ Forest leaves, shining in the sun. A peaceful lake, with water lilies drifting on it. A hummingbird. A dragonfly. Her eyes. Her eyes were stunning. _

Glenn Rhee knew he was lost, staring into her eyes.

.-.

When she felt the sticky blood on her temple, she realized that she had been left behind for dead - which wasn’t surprising, since her four traveling companions were all lying on the ground around her with broken limbs and ghastly wounds, cold and gray in death. She was the only survivor.

Sobbing, she crawled over to the body of her brother and slid her hands under his shoulders and head to cradle him to herself, wishing desperately that she could bring him back to life with her body heat, her breath on his skin, the love she felt for him. But there was no coming back for him - her whole family was lying around her, slain by the robbers who had come out of nowhere the night before as they had been setting up camp.

And not only was she the only one left alive, she was left without any of the supplies they had been carrying - it had all been taken away. Food, clothes, weapons - all of it. She had nothing left. She was alone in the forest, unarmed, hungry, hurt, with no idea how to go on.

.-.

One of the guards on the watchtower was the first to spot her as she stumbled toward the bridge leading over the stream. Clearly, she was in bad shape, and by the time she had turned toward the keep and two men were riding out to meet her, they could see she had blood on her face and her clothing was spattered with it.

The first rider to reach her got off his horse to help her on and then get back into the saddle behind her as the other kept watching their surroundings. Maybe the people who had attacked this woman were still in the area, ready to assault them for the horses and their weapons.

But all remained quiet as they set out to make their way back to the keep with the woman who had by then started weeping quietly.

When the two riders came back into the keep, the healer was already waiting for them with two of his assistants. Together, they helped the woman off the horse and guided her into the keep, heading for the infirmary.

.-.

Glenn caught the last of his plates with a flourish before setting it on top of the stack in Carl’s hands. He carefully slipped the final staff into the quiver and handed that to Carl as well. The boy bowed and stepped back, making room for Glenn who bent down to the large chest sitting at his feet. Michonne, who was sitting at the head of the main table with Andrea beside her, had provided him with it since it would look better than his backpack during his performance, and had told him to keep it. She’d had it taken to his room in the afternoon, caked in dust, so she obviously didn’t need it herself.

Opening the elaborately tooled lid, Glenn took out an armful of his silk squares and started tying them together as he set out on a story about a princess locked up in a tower who had used a rope made up of silk squares just like these to escape her captors. When he had reached the point at which he planned to start the diversion for his first trick, the door behind him flew open and footsteps came rushing in.

Glenn faltered, looking to Michonne for a hint on what she wanted him to do.

Lady Michonne gestured for him to pause and looked at the newcomer - one of the healer’s assistants, Glenn saw. Daryl had been sent to see the keep’s medic, Hershel, about the burn on his hand - and probably the wound on his chest that he had incurred by magically speeding up the dagger he’d used for his second kill during the attack on them at the cave, Glenn assumed -, and it had been this assistant who had shown him the way back to his room. Glenn had run into the two of them in the hallway as he himself had returnd  come back to his room from the kitchen, and he’d introduced himself, telling Glenn he was always welcome to ask for help, even for small things.

Now the young man - Noah, he remembered - looked terrified, and Lady Michonne tried to get him to calm down at first before asking him why he had come here in such a rush and interrupted the celebration in honor of their guests.

“There’s robbers around, a whole band of them,” Noah announced, loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear. There were some gasps from a number  several  of the feast’s attendees, and several of the warriors rose from their seats at once, climbing over their benches to stand ready to defend the keep.

Michonne raised a calming hand. “Tell me what happened, and when,” she instructed Noah.

So the terrified young man told them all about the woman who had come stumbling across the bridge over the ford in the late afternoon, bleeding from a scalp wound, dehydrated, hungry, and cold. While Hershel had first treated her, she had been unresponsive and hadn’t even given him her name when he’d asked her. 

Now, however, she had just woken up after several hours’ sleep. She was feeling much better physically, and had told Hershel about the group of armed men that had attacked her traveling party the night before, killed her whole family, taken all of their possessions, and left her for dead, probably because of her bleeding head wound.

Michonne thanked him for bringing her news of this and told him she would come to question the woman later on, and to let her rest until she did.

As Noah bowed back out of the hall, Michonne thoughtfully looked at the juggler waiting to continue his performance. His group, too, had been attacked in the woods on the other side of the ford. Maybe these two attacks had been initiated by the same group of thugs?


	17. Chapter 17

Standing on the battlements over the gate, Michonne and Andrea looked after the group moving off toward the coast. They had assured their guests several times that no assaults had been reported in from that direction, or indeed from their side of the fort in general, but had still sent some of Michonne’s men with them just to be sure they would be safe until they arrived at the harbor.

With a sigh, Michonne turned back to face her healer who had requested a few minutes of her time.

“Hershel, you said you needed to talk to me?”

The white-haired old man with the kind, faded blue eyes bowed to her before they started walking, Michonne in the middle between her partner and Hershel.

“Yes, I would like to keep you informed on the patients in our ward or otherwise being treated by me right now. As you might know, the mage, Daryl, arrived with magic-induced injuries to his hand and his chest. I believe you had seen the burn on his palm and sent him to me for that?” She nodded and he went on. “When I asked him if he had any other wounds he showed me a shallow stab wound on his chest. It had been treated with a herbal ointment, dressed, and bandaged, just the day before they came, and it wasn’t infected and looked well taken care of.”

They reached the stairwell tower and he opened and held the door for the two women. They preceded him down the stairs, and he resumed his report, his voice and their footfalls echoing in the tower. All three of them were careful to watch their footing for the narrow windows in the outside walls didn’t let in too much light.

“I had asked him to come see me again this morning so I could check his hand and chest, and I’m happy to say that he is fully healed.” Michonne nodded approvingly at this. The mage not mentioning his injuries had had her angry at him at first, but after seeing him the first time, Hershel had already told her that even the stab wound to the mage’s chest had been adequately treated either by himself or the warrior, Carol, so she hadn’t seen a reason to discipline him for not being entirely honest with her - neither of his injuries would ever have posed a problem to her, or hindered him from serving in a battle.

“Sadly, though, as you know, I had to admit a new patient last night, and she is still anxious and restless. Her head wound required stitches, but I am hoping there will be no infection. Luckily, she started walking in our direction and not back the way she had come, or this might have ended badly for her.” 

Michonne’s brow furrowed. “How long until we can ask her for a reliable description of the men who attacked her family? And has Abraham sent out some men to bring the bodies of her family back for burial?”

“He took care of that last night, right after she first became coherent enough to tell us what had happened  we had brought her in . They should be returning with the bodies as we speak. As for a description from her …” They arrived at the door leading to his medical ward, and he made an inviting gesture. Again opening and holding the door for Michonne and Andrea, he preceded them down the hallway and then stopped at one of the doors lining it. When he cracked it open, they saw a dark-skinned  pale  woman, still with a gray tinge to her skin, with a bandage around her head asleep in a bed. Hershel closed the door again without a sound.

“I would not expect her to be able to give us a clear description before at least two or three more days have passed,” he cautioned. “Any sooner, and it might just be scares from her nightmares that she would be describing.”

She nodded. “I’ll wait, then. But I need her statement the moment she wakes up. I cannot allow a band of thugs to terrorize the travelers on this road - quite apart from the fact that they might one day decide that they like our keep better than their cave, or whatever they are hiding in. I need to control this threat. Ours is the only keep for miles around, so this is our responsibility. We need to keep this road open and safe.”

“Of course, I will let you know the moment she is coherent.”

.-.

Dinner in the great hall had come and gone, they had looked for the warrior and the mage, had waited for them to show up in the hall when they had finally sat down to eat, but when the darkness outside was complete and neither of the two had come in for dinner yet, Glenn became seriously worried.

He did his best to keep his fears hidden from Carl and was glad when the boy left for the stable to help feed the horses and see that everything there was in place for the night. The portcullis went down, its rattling setting Glenn’s teeth on edge, and there was still no sign of the warrior and the mage. Had they left again without telling him or Carl?

Once Carl had gone to bed  was gone and he could investigate openly, he started asking the guards and the maids, and finally one of the guards coming down from a watchtower to have a late dinner nodded at his question.

“He’s the guy in the red robe, right? With the staff and crossbow? He’s up on the battlements near the East Tower. The warrior woman’s not with him, though.” 

Frowning, Glenn thanked him and marched off to find the mage.

The wind had a stinging edge to it when Glenn stepped out of the tower and onto the battlements, and he instantly regretted not putting on his cloak before coming up here. It was so dark that he didn’t see Daryl right away but had to allow some time for his eyes to adjust. The fitful moonlight shining on the scene in front of him, with torn clouds being driven across the sky by the high autumn winds, didn’t exactly help.

When he could finally make sense of what he was facing, he saw Daryl standing out there like a statue, his robes gathered tightly around him against the wind, his hood up. The bow was slung across his back, although Glenn had no idea how he even intended to aim in the dark or what good - or rather, what harm - his bolts would do at this distance to someone standing on the ground.

He made sure to make some noise as he approached the mage - startling him was probably not a good idea right now. When he was five steps away from him, Daryl turned his head and acknowledged him with a nod. Stepping up to him, Glenn pulled up his shoulders against the wind.

“Where’s Carol? Why haven’t you come down for dinner?”

“She’s out there.” Daryl’s voice was a low growl. “Got sent out with the group protecting the people that left this morning. ‘m not turnin’ in  leavin’  before she’s back in.”

Glenn stared at him. “Do you even know how far it is to where she’s accompanying them?”

Daryl nodded. “They were supposed to be back back by nightfall if everything went according to plan. Apparently it didn’t - she ain’t here.” He gestured out over the dark, empty courtyard, at the closed portcullis.

Clearing his throat and hunching down a little more against the cold wind, Glenn carefully worded his next question. “Wouldn’t she let you know the moment she’s back, though? I’m sure she’ll come to you right away, there’s no need to stand out here in the cold. You were sick just a few days ago.”

“Won’t be much longer until she’s back,” Daryl replied cryptically.

“How … How can you know that?”

“You’ll find out if you are ever sent out there without us. Now get back inside, you’re not dressed for this wind.”

Was  _ Daryl _ of all people getting protective over him? Glenn stared at the mage for a few moments longer until he had to concede defeat to the wind. “They’re keeping dinner warm for the guards,” he shouted over the wind. “So when you do come in, and she’s back, make sure to get some hot food in the main hall, it tasted great and it’ll warm you up.”

One of Daryl’s hands snaked out of his red robes, holding what seemed to be a small glowing glass ball.

Glenn felt heat radiating from it - and goosebumps rising on his arms at the sight.

“Don’t worry, ‘m fine. You get back inside now, find a place by the fire.”

With one last look at the glowing ball in Daryl’s hand, Glenn rushed to get away from him.

.-.

Carol had seen in his eyes how much he regretted their decision to stay here at this particular moment. He’d been standing in his open door, his robes still open, hair messy, crossbow in hand. When opening the door he had actually been holding up one hand, ready to cast a defensive spell in case an enemy was waiting outside. On seeing Carol, he’d dropped the hand, but the crossbow was as much a part of him as his spells. He had nodded to prompt her into speaking.

“Good morning, Daryl.”

His only answer had been a squint.

“I’ve been assigned to the group that will accompany the party that arrived yesterday to the harbor, because of that band of robbers in the area, and I probably won’t be back until late at night. I didn’t want you to worry.”

He had taken a deep breath, and she had known exactly what he’d been thinking. 

_ Why did I ever want to sign up with anyone even for a short time? We’ll get orders that will separate us. I knew that, and there’s nothing I can do. I’ll have to wait all day to know if she’s safe or not. If anything happens, I won’t be there to help keep her safe. I fucked up. _

“The robbers are north of the stream, we know that. We will stay south of it, all the time, and follow it to the harbor. I won’t be in danger, it’ll be okay.”

He had produced a short grunt and reached into one of the pouches dangling from the belt usually cinching his robe to pull a well-worn, smooth amulet made of dark gray stone from it, about the size of a Gold Dragon. He’d handed it to her, folding her fingers around it.

“Carry this in a pocket or a pouch. It doesn’t need to touch your skin.” 

He’d nodded briefly  at her and retreated into his room, closing his door. No word of good-bye, no reassurance that everything was going to be alright. He was distressed because she was leaving alone on a potentially dangerous mission and he wouldn’t be there to help if things went wrong.

Now dusk was falling and he was probably still dealing with his self-recriminations, blaming himself for getting her into danger when all he had done was find a spot for them for the winter, and chastizing himself for something he’d had no control over.

And probably for not saying good-bye properly, afraid that they might have seen each other for the last time at his open door in the morning.

She knew him - she’d been traveling with him long enough. Knew his tendency to blame himself. Knew he would hate himself for “getting her out here” even though he’d had no say in her assignment, would not be allowed to join her for it, and they had both agreed that they wanted to spend the winter at a lord’s keep, knowing that their orders might separate them from time to time. If any blame was due, it was to both of them, in equal parts, but he would not see it that way.

Sighing, Carol pulled her cloak more tightly around herself so it wouldn’t flap in the wind, letting in the cold. The tip of her nose felt as if it was freezing off, and the new boots she had been issued as a member of Lady Michonne’s warband were torturing her feet. She was looking forward to taking them off and soaking her feet in a bucket of warm water. To hot food. Her bed.

_ His breathing next to her in the darkness. The rustling of his blankets as he turned in his sleep. The occasional sighs and moans that escaped him when he was having nightmares. _

She told herself to stop. They were no longer sharing the same space at night, so she would not have the comfort of his company at night during this winter - and suddenly the winter that was only just approaching seemed endless to her. She would much have preferred his company in her room to the small hearth that was going to warm it.

Although she was weary beyond belief, after a whole day out on the road in the cold, carrying the weight of the armor and weapons she had been issued, she lifted her head, hoping to recognize her surroundings in the gloom. She hadn’t been in this area very often, and the last time she had come here had been at least eight years ago, so she had no landmarks to go by.

But there were tiny lights in the distance, and she hoped that this was the keep they were headed back to.Turning to the man next to her, she asked, “Is that the keep, up ahead? Those lights?”

He looked up briefly to squint into the gathering darkness, and nodded. They trotted on.

.-.

He was waiting at the main entrance to the keep as the portcullis was raised to allow the warband in, a bowl of steaming food in his hand that he gave her to hold in exchange for her weapons. She dug the small stone amulet out of her empty rations pouch to hand it back to him, but he shook his head. He wanted her to keep it.

“You need ta do anything yet, or have you been dismissed?”

“Dismissed,” she managed.

Nodding, he lightly grasped her elbow and steered her away from the main hall, taking her down several hallways and through a number of doors, into a section of the keep she was certain hadn’t been included in their welcome tour of it.

“Where are we?” she asked, bewildered.

“You got a bath waiting, you wanna get to it, or waste time askin’ questions?”

“A bath?” she gasped, nearly dropping the stew that was beginning to warm her from inside. Looking back at her, he handed her the piece of bread he had also brought for her, and she gratefully took a large bite before handing it back so she had her hands free to eat once more.

“Figured you’d be cold and hurting after a day on the road.”

He opened a door leading off the hallway and she stopped dead in her tracks, rooted to the spot. The room was small, lit only by candles and the fire in the hearth that was also used to heat the bath water. A hot cloud of steam came at her that drove home how much she had longed for, but at the same time dared not hope for a tub bath instead of just a bucket of warm water for her poor feet - and she had fully expected to have to heat the water and fill the bucket herself. The kettle was steaming, so he was either still filling the wooden sitting tub at the center of the room, or he wanted to have more hot water ready for when she got cold.

But no - surely he wasn’t going to stay in the room with her naked.

He had laid out a towel and fresh clothes on a stool next to the tub for her, she saw. Apparently he had been following her gaze, for now he blushed and cleared his throat.

“Went to your room for some clothes, ‘m sorry.”

“No! Don’t apologize! This is perfect, thank you!” She rushed into the bathroom, setting down her bowl so she’d have her hands free, and started unbuckling her armor right away.

Blushing furiously, Daryl carefully placed her weapons on the stone floor next to the door. “I’ll send someone to pour in more hot water later on, so you can soak in it. Soap bar’s under the towel, on top of your clothes - didn’t want it ta slide down off the stool,” he mumbled. She looked up as he retreated from the room, closing the door.

“Daryl?”

He stopped and met her eyes, haunted by his fear for her safety during this long, long day.

_ Why was he so afraid for her? _

Her heart missed a beat, but she instantly scolded herself for being a dreamer.  _ Do not even  _ think _ that. It isn’t like that. _

“Thank you.”

He nodded, and left.


	18. Chapter 18

All week long, people had come in reporting sounds in the forest, arrows whizzing past them - and people who had been assaulted and robbed, some of them in broad daylight. It was unacceptable that this was going on within a one day distance from the keep, and Michonne was not going to tolerate it any longer. 

After some time spent assigning everyone into groups and then assigning the groups to search quadrants, and after the repairs to the drawbridge and the portcullis had been completed, she told her steward to assemble her warband. She waited patiently until they were all standing in the courtyard in the foglike drizzle filling the air. They were all armed and ready to go at a moment’s notice - they’d all been expecting this, and were ready for it.

Even the mage had shown up who wasn’t even officially a part of the warband but had the status of some kind of “secret weapon”, since this was the first time that a mage was fighting on her team. He was standing next to the warrior he had arrived with, Carol - the one who had been on guard duty for her guests a little over a week ago and had acquitted herself well, according to her commanding officer for that mission.

She had also received reports about the mage standing on the battlements in the freezing cold until she had returned to the keep that night, about him getting food for her, about him waiting for her at the entrance to whisk her away to one of the bathrooms  with the food . Some investigation on her part had revealed that one of the maids had prepared a bath for her at his bidding and with his help - and that he had returned to his own bedroom, alone, while she had still been taking her bath.

Interesting.

Michonne knew that she would do well to assign the mage, Daryl, to Carol’s unit as this would give her top performances from each of them. Whether they knew it or not, they clearly belonged together.

.-.

They found Glenn and Carl in one of the smaller rooms off the main hall, practising. Glenn was just producing silk cuts from Carl’s ears that were delicate enough to see through when Daryl opened the door for Carol to walk through. Looking up at the wrong moment, Glenn accidentally yanked on Carl’s earlobe instead of the piece of sky blue silk hanging  coming out of the boy’s ear, and Carl yelped in protest.

“You’re all geared up, what’s going on?”

Since Daryl just looked disgusted, probably at the frivolity of the scene they had walked in on, Carol decided to answer Glenn’s question before Daryl could decide to bite his head off - he looked just pissed enough to do it.

“Surely you’ve heard about all the people coming in lately who were threatened or attacked in the woods where we got attacked in the cave.” She waited for Glenn and Carl to nod before continuing. “Well, Michonne feels this has been going on for far too long now and wants to make the road safe for travelers again. We’re being sent out to find these bandits and take them out.”

“But … Isn’t that dangerous?” Carl sounded doubtful, and Carol’s heart grew heavy. The boy had lost his mother and his home to a group just like this one and wasn’t likely to forget it anytime soon, if ever.

“First, we’re trained soldiers. We’ll be in large groups so each of us is safe. We’ll be well armed, and we’re prepared. We already  _ know _ they’re hiding out there, so they can’t surprise us, the way they surprised us at the cave, and the way they surprised those travelers.” 

She stepped up to the boy and tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder, watching out for any sign of discomfort, but he seemed to relish the touch.  _ Maternal _ , she thought wryly, and for a second, a wish, kept secret even from herself, flitted through her mind like a sparkling butterfly shining in the sun, infinitely tempting, but she instantly put up her guards against it.  _ No. It will never happen. _

Steeling herself, she went on. “We’ll go out every day until we find them and this road is safe once more, but we won’t be alone. The whole warband will be going, with only enough of them staying behind to defend the keep in case of an attack, until the rest of us can get back.”

Carl surprised her by moving forward suddenly to hug her - and then surprised her even more by letting go and then  _ hugging Daryl _ . The mage let out a grunt, but was too surprised to react beyond that.

“Promise you’ll come back,” Carl whispered once he had stepped back and was standing next to Glenn again.

“I’m pretty sure they will do their best not to die, it’s in their own best interest,” Glenn muttered, but he, too, looked moved.

“You bet on it,” Daryl growled, adjusting his crossbow on his back. A multitude of pouches were dangling from the belt cinching his red robes around his waist, and Glenn shuddered to think of what he might be able to unleash against his enemies - and Carol’s. Daryl with his spells ready and without sickness or injuries to hold him back was a force to be reckoned with all by himself. These guys had it coming.

Stepping up to Carol, Glenn hugged her briefly. “Come back safely, we’ll be waiting.”

As she smiled at him, Glenn nodded at Daryl - not being an orphaned teenager, he was pretty certain that, unlike Carl,  _ he _ wouldn’t get away with hugging him. “Take good care of yourselves, be careful out there.”

Daryl nodded back, biting on his lower lip. “You look out for the kid,” he told Glenn. “We’ll be okay, don’t worry.”

With one last glance at Carl, he briefly summoned a dancing flame on his right palm, then grinned as the boy’s eyes widened in amazement, and closed his fist around it. “We’ll be okay.”

The keep seemed cold and lonely after the door had closed behind him and Carol.

.-.

The way to the river and across the bridge had been uneventful - there were few spots there suitable for hiding, so they had been able to make good time until they reached the forest. Once there, the group split up into six smaller ones, each with one dedicated leader so they’d be able to follow a coordinated strategy.

Carol and Daryl had been assigned to the same group and set out for their quadrant. There were six of them, with a giant ginger as their leader. Abraham Ford gave them instructions on what to look out for, and they moved off to the northeast, veering away from the road leading back to the keep, and also moving in a different direction from where the cave was located where they had spent two nights on the way here.

For the time being, Daryl was holding up his crossbow, loaded and ready for firing as always. Carol was right next to him, sword in hand, as they moved into the foothills and among the boulders strewn across the landscape here. Some of them were already large enough to hide behind, and they didn’t want to be taken by surprise.

A few minutes into this desolate landscape, Abraham held up one hand and stopped.

“Nobody wanders off in here on their own, and I  _ mean _ nobody, no matter how experienced. We stay together in groups of at least two so there’s always someone next to you to notice if anything goes wrong - all it takes is turning an ankle on this uneven ground.” He looked from one to the other, twirling his impressive moustache. “We reunite every time I give the signal so you can all report in and we can make sure everyone’s still safe. Got it?”

They all nodded and moved on, more slowly now as the terrain was getting more favorable to hiding behind boulders and dense shrubs, and setting up ambushes. A group of six armed men and women was better than a group of four unarmed travelers, but they were still only six people, and Abraham didn’t want them to become overconfident. After all, they had no idea of the size of the group they were up against.

With a look and a nod at each other, Carol and Daryl set out toward the left of the group, making their noiseless way around a large boulder that completely blocked their view. Carol could feel her heart racing in her chest, and her hands going cold. Against all logic, Daryl was in front of her, as usual, despite the fact that he was carrying a long-range weapon. She had learned to live with his need to stand between her and any danger they might come across, but she would never like it.

Once, the thick sole of Daryl’s boot got snagged on a small stone, kicking it loose, and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest as it rolled away before it settled again some feet ahead of them. “Be more careful!” she admonished him softly, and he nodded without answering. As his hood was down so he would hear better, she could see the tips of his ears turning red. That noise could easily have given away their position to anyone lurking in the area, alerting them to their presence.

They walked on, just the two of them, setting their feet carefully to avoid kicking around any more stones or turning an ankle on the increasingly uneven ground. After some time - neither of them could have even estimated how much time had passed since the sun was hidden behind a dense cloud cover - they heard a low whistle and slowly made their way back in the direction of their four fellow team members and their group leader. Just as they were all stepping into the open space in the middle of half a dozen large boulders, several things happened at the same time.

Daryl heard someone giving a shout, then there was a loud bang and stone splinters flew in their faces as the ground in front of him seemed to explode. One of their men went down, clutching his leg, blood welling up between his fingers as he started screaming. Abraham was shouting orders that got drowned out by the noise all around them.

Swinging his crossbow onto his back, Daryl immediately raised both hands, shouting,  _ “Feinad!” _ A series of deep purple fireballs erupted from his hands and whizzed off, each of them seeking out the point of origin of one of the sounds assaulting their ears to take out the people they were hearing. Once the half dozen light balls had launched, he pulled his staff out of his belt, hissing in pain when his palms came into contact with the smooth, worn wood, and held it out in front of him. 

_ “Daleth!” _

At Daryl’s whisper, the carved tip of the staff seemed to erupt in flame, and he stepped up to their injured comrade who was still wailing in shock. The projectile that had struck him had obviously torn into a major blood vessel for he was still bleeding profusely. Keeping his eyes on their surroundings at all times, Daryl found the largest of his pouches on his belt with his free hand and tugged it open. Pulling out a rolled-up bandage, he tossed it at the injured man. “Tourniquet!”

Trembling in abject fear, the man grabbed the roll with one blood-spattered hand, the other still putting pressure on his thigh, and started unwinding enough fabric from it to tie around his leg. Once he saw him beginning to tend to his wound, Daryl turned away from him again, looking to Abraham for orders.

Another booming sound, another spray of stone fragments, a cloud of smoke rolling in on them, reducing visibility to three yards at best. The other side clearly had an explosives specialist among them. Then a voice boomed out.

“Surrender, or you won’t get out of this alive! One of you is already bleeding to death because he’s too stupid to tie off his leg efficiently, and the others will die as well if you don’t submit to us! You’ve got ten heartbeats!”

Carol signaled to Daryl and Abraham, stepped away from Daryl, who looked alarmed at this, and started moving off in the direction of one of the boulders since the voice seemed to be coming from behind it. Just as Daryl started following her, not a heartbeat later, a man appeared around the boulder like a specter, raised a fighting staff over his head, and struck Carol down with it, all in the space of less than the blink of an eye. Carol dropped to the ground like so much dead weight.

Daryl roared, lifting his staff, and the flames still licking at its tip lashed out like a whip of fire even as Daryl started screaming at a higher pitch, clearly in pain. Carol was lying on the ground, not moving, and there was blood on her temple. Seeing red, Daryl started running toward her, screaming a spell that threw the man backward several yards and slammed him into the ground, only to be held back by Abraham as he threw himself forward for a follow-up attack. 

Sure enough, two more men appeared and started to drag Carol around the boulder and out of sight as the attacker Daryl had thrown to the ground started climbing  to get to his feet again. There was a smoking patch on his chest where Daryl’s fire snake had struck him. A mail shirt glinted amid the shredded and smoldering fabric of his cloak.

“NO!” Daryl yelled, fighting against Abraham’s hold on him even as the man now pulled out one of the small lead pellet guns that had begun to appear more and more over the past year or two, leveling it at Daryl. “Let me get her! I HAVE to get her back! Let go of me!” He threw himself forward with all of his weight, staff held out in front of him, clearly preparing to cast again. Slipping on the trampled grass, he caught himself with one hand on the ground. Just before he pushed himself up again, his eyes widened and he picked up a small object with the hand still holding the staff.

“Daryl, no!” Ford yelled as at least a dozen arrows suddenly rained down on them, driving them back. Daryl was still fighting to get away from his commanding officer, though, keeping them both out in the open for the second volley of arrows. One of them struck Daryl’s left thigh, another got stuck in  Abraham’s right calf as he was trying to take a step backward to get away. A third glanced off Daryl’s crossbow. If not for the weapon protecting his back, it would have lodged in his lung.

“Come to your senses, man!” Abraham wanted to shake Daryl for being so stubborn. “Look at you! You cast what, three spells? Each of them attacking? So that was three hits on you, plus an arrow to your leg.” Sheer rage enabled him to spin Daryl around so he could look him in the eye. Now he saw the raw burns on Daryl’s palms, and a hole singed into his shirt where his robes had pulled open during the fight. At its center was a palm-sized burn, with painful looking blisters and molten skin around the raw flesh at the center. He felt sick to his stomach just looking at it. This looked as if it might be as bad as what Daryl’s target would have gotten from this attack - if not for the chain mail  mail  the man was wearing.

“You’re not in fighting shape anymore,” he whispered urgently, holding Daryl by his shoulders and staring into his eyes that were full of rage and pain. “I swear to you, we will not abandon her. We’ll get her back, just not today.” There was another explosion a yard away, and they were sprayed with more stone fragments and dirt. By now, everyone but them had retreated from the stone circle, and every member of their group was bleeding. This time, Daryl actually seemed to notice that something was going on, for he flinched away from the stones and dirt peppering them with a panicked look on his face. Several small cuts in his faces had started bleeding.

“We’re going back to the keep, everyone gets patched up, and then we go looking for your warrior.” Abraham gently punched Daryl’s left arm to get a reaction from him, and Daryl bent forward to vomit all over Abraham’s feet.

“You gross asshole!” Abraham jumped back, letting go of Daryl, who promptly slumped to the ground, clutching the arrow sticking out of his leg with one hand and the runny burn on his chest with the other. He was shaking now with the backlash of his spells, demonstrating the main reason why armies were not made up entirely of mages.

“We don’t even know where they’re taking her.”

He sounded broken, and Abraham’s heart ached. He’d only trained with these two for three days until Carol had been sent out to guard the group heading out for the harbor, but he had come to trust both of them to have his back in a tight spot. They were both proficient in their crafts, and seeing a self-assured fighter reduced to this hurt him deeply.

“We’ll find out, I swear. I will have men out to look for them within an hour. But you have to come back with us. You need a healer.” He sighed at the stubborn look on Daryl’s face and pulled his last card - knowing full well that he was using Daryl’s own expectations of himself against him. “You’re no good to her like this, Daryl. Right now, you going back for treatment is what will help her the most.”

At long last, the mage lowered his head, his shoulders sagging. His hand around the arrow in his leg loosened and blood started welling up between his fingers.

Spotting the open pouch on his belt, Abraham leaned forward. “You’re carrying medical supplies!” he exclaimed. “Is it okay if I use these for you?” He pointed at the bandages and dressings in the pouch, and Daryl nodded dejectedly.

“Press down on the wound with your hand, don’t reduce the pressure you’re putting on it,” Abraham instructed Daryl. “Now, let me take off that crossbow …”

With two other men, he helped Daryl lie down and then provisionally dressed and bandaged both the arrow wound on his leg after snapping off the arrow a hand above Daryl’s thigh, and the burn on his chest. When they were done, he asked Daryl if he had anything on him that he could use against the pain for both Daryl himself and the other man who had been hit in the leg, as well as his own shallow arrow wound on his calf, and Daryl pulled a small brown glass bottle out of his pouch with his bloodstained fingers.

“Five drops.” He sounded utterly lifeless.

As he administered the tincture to his patients and then took five drops of it himself, Abraham instructed one of his men to find the main group, tell them what had happened, and request a team to join them immediately and start the search for Carol. The man nodded and sped off.

Looking at the mage who was just sitting up again, pulling his robe closed over his chest, he noticed his hands were trembling with shock. There had to be something he could do to calm him down.

“We’ll send out a search team right away. We’ll find her by tomorrow at the latest, you’ll see.” Daryl’s red hands were still shaking. There was a bleak, dead look in his eyes. “She’ll be okay, I swear,” Abraham repeated helplessly.

Finally, Daryl looked up and met his eyes, holding out his singed and bloodstained right hand. A round object the size of a small Gold Dragon was lying in it, worn smooth and shiny - but it wasn’t one of the rare, precious gold coins, Abraham saw, but a flat stone disc. Abraham stared at the thing Daryl was showing him, but didn’t understand what it meant. Daryl’s voice  still sounded broken when he answered.

“We don’t even know if she’s alive anymore.”


	19. Chapter 19

The search groups reunited at the edge of the forest where they had set out for their respective quadrants. Surprisingly, each group had encountered another group of bandits, and they slowly began to realize that they were facing unexpectedly large numbers.

Out of the fifty-six people that had left the keep, three had been taken prisoner - or hostage - and two had been killed. Fifteen men were injured, including Daryl and Abraham. Because of their injured, they had to take it slowly on the way back, but still, with no horses and no carts for transporting their wounded, the road back to the keep took them twice as long as the way out.

Daryl stumbled along in a daze, the shortened shaft of the arrow still protruding from his thigh, a bandage smudged by dirt and blood keeping it from getting jostled, and the dressing and the flat stone between it and the bandage that was keeping pressure on the wound to stop or at least slow the bleeding from slipping.

His mind rang with words, all in his own voice, dripping with scorn and contempt.

_ I was too slow. _

_ I failed her. _

_ I allowed this to happen. _

_ I let her get captured. _

_ I got her hurt. _

_ I might have gotten her killed. Raped. Tortured for information. _

_ I. _

_ I. _

_ I. _

_ I. _

_ I. _

_ I. _

_ My fault. All of it. _

His only reason for going on was his hope of going out there after her and getting her back, alive, unharmed.

Of maybe, someday, being forgiven for this. 

He kept remembering her pale face, the blood on her temple and in her hair, the way she had slumped to the ground on getting hit. His stomach rebelled, and he limped off the road and into the ditch running alongside it, just in time for the bile flooding his mouth to hit the grass instead of the road or one of his comrades in arms. As he leaned forward, his leg threatened to give way under him - and then he felt a hand on his arm, steadying him. Right then, however, his mind was in a  “touch is bad” mood, so he violently flinched back, tearing himself out of Abraham’s grip. Losing his balance, he started stumbling toward the field side of the ditch, but Abraham made another attempt, and this time, seeing the hand coming toward him and knowing that Abraham’s intentions were good, Daryl managed to tolerate a stranger’s hand on his body and suppress his instinctive reaction.

Panting with physical exertion as well as the simple need to get some air into his constricting lungs, he stared at Abraham, barely able to meet his eyes. He saw the compassion in them, the forgiveness that he wasn’t capable of himself. He rubbed the stone amulet with his loosely bandaged right hand, desperately wishing she was still carrying it so he’d at least know she was still unharmed except for the head injury.

“There was nothing you could have done, boy,” Abraham said softly, his voice soothing. “She moved away from you and they were ready and waiting. You would have had to shoot your bolt right through her - or your spell.”

“She trusted me.”

“She is also a warrior. She is well trained, I saw that during our training. Unless she gets ambushed, which can happen to the best of us, she can handle herself out here and doesn’t need anyone to keep her safe and protect her.” He let go of Daryl’s arm and saw the mage relaxing. His chest expanded briefly as he managed a deep breath.

“We will get her back, I’ll just keep saying it until you believe me. We would never leave one of our own behind in captivity.” His voice sounded like he meant it, his eyes and face were honest, but Daryl had to force himself not to shout his answer.

“But we’ve only just arrived. We’re new. You don’t know us. You can’t ask your men to risk their lives for either of us.” His eyes went down to the ground, at the large puddle of bile he had vomited up. His throat, mouth, and lips were still burning. Absentmindedly he grabbed his water skin from his belt and took a single gulp, swishing it around in his mouth and then spitting it out. Once he was certain that he had gotten rid of the vile taste, he looked up at Abraham again.

“We’re not worth this risk.”

Abraham shook his head again. “You’re members of our war band, so we will not abandon you. Either one of you would have been prepared to die for us, so the same is true for any of us. It’s that simple.” Abe put his hand on Daryl’s elbow to help him up and out of the ditch and back onto the road, and gestured expansively at the group of people loosely gathered around them. Shoulders slumping again, Daryl lowered his head to stare at his feet. After another moment’s silence they continued their march back toward the castle.

By the time they arrived in the courtyard shortly after that, Daryl was ready to drop in his tracks. They were ordered to take care of their gear, grab some food, and get the rest they needed after the day they’d had. Daryl was just going to return to his room in the west wing, next to Carol’s room that would remain empty until they managed to get her back, again looking at the ground in defeat, when there was a hand on his arm once more.

He pulled back and looked up - and his eyes met Glenn’s. The younger man was holding two steaming bowls on a wooden trencher, with several thick slices of bread lying between them. Although he wished he could just stop feeling the pain inside his chest that seemed to be squeezing his ribs together until his heart was laboring against the pressure, he was still grateful for the food, and for the compassionate look in Glenn’s eyes.

“You look rough - and where’s Carol?”

Daryl sucked in a sobbing breath, but couldn’t  didn’t  answer. Right now, he needed all of his self-control just to stop himself from going on a rampage, mindlessly destroying things, maybe even attacking the people around him who clearly understood, from Glenn’s reaction, what he was feeling  like . His hand clenched around the stone amulet.

“Taken.”

His voice was barely audible even to himself. His breath whistled into and out of his lungs. His heartbeat had become a crashing sound echoing in his head, and he wasn’t sure that the sound was even remotely connected to the actual beating of his heart anymore - it might have been released and left to exist separate from it, so it would haunt his sleep with the sound of his defeat.

_ Carol was gone. He had failed her. _

The thought was too large for him to contain  hold . He didn’t protest as Glenn handed the trencher to Carl, who seemed to have materialized next to him straight out of the ground, and then gently grasped his elbow to lead him into the keep.

“You’re hurt, and you look like a ghost. You must have had a horrible day, even without Carol getting taken on top of it. Let’s have Hershel take a look at you.” Glenn carefully leaned in toward him as they passed a torch in a wall mounted support to inspect Daryl’s chest. “That looks like a … burn?” He sounded non-plussed. “How did you get burned here? And quite badly, too? What happened to your hands? And - is that an  _ arrow _ sticking in your leg?”

Only one man had had the presence of mind to head for the medical wing right away, but at least there was an empty chair for Daryl to sit down on. Glenn helped him gather  handle his robe around himself and relieved him of his crossbow and staff before giving him one of the bowls, now no longer steaming, but the stew was still hot. Its delicious scent of potatoes, white beans, and thick, juicy chunks of meat, quickly filled the room. Carl eyed the second bowl as Glenn handed one of the slices of bread to Daryl.

“What happened out there? Why are you in this condition? And where’s Carol?”

The empty look that came into Daryl’s eyes at his questions told Glenn that he had been firing at him too quickly. He grasped the bowl, still half full, as Daryl’s hands started to tremble. “Hey, take it easy. Don’t speak, it’s okay. That redhead who was next to you said you would get her back, and you will. Just heal up a bit, and go back to bring her home.”

His heart ached when Daryl let out one long, heart-wrenching sob. He still had no idea how these two had met, or what made them so special to each other, but there could be no doubt anymore that Daryl loved the warrior deeply. Glenn had seen hints of how much they cared about each other ever since he had met them, in so many small, everyday gestures and interactions, but Daryl beating himself up over her not coming back with him was making Glenn’s heart ache. Carl, he saw from the corner of his eye, looked devastated. He was probably seeing the flaming ruins of his home in front of his mind’s eye, was hearing his mother’s death screams from inside it.

Glenn grabbed the trencher from Carl and set it on a nearby stool before quickly embracing the boy. “I think he’d be worse if she had died, if he knew that she’s dead. Something bad has happened out there, that’s obvious, but the red-haired guy said they’d get her back.” Taking a step away from Carl, he gently tipped up the boy’s head with one finger so he could look him in the eyes. “She’s alive, and as long as she’s alive, there’s a chance of her coming back. Don’t be afraid.”

“But … look at him.” Carl’s voice sounded awed, and small, and afraid. He sounded like a boy - like a child, a frightened child.

“Have you ever had someone missing from your family? That’s where he is right now. She’s his family, and she’s missing.” Carl’s eyes had become large.

“But they … They don’t have the same name? They never say they’re each other’s husband and wife?” He remembered his mother missing and then mourning his father, and he knew he would not be able to witness this again, this time with Daryl mourning Carol.

“Well, some people belong together, no matter if there’s a document to prove it or not, even if they never say their vows,” Glenn replied softly. “And these two are clearly meant to be.”

The door to the treatment room opened and Hershel came out with the man who had preceded them, his arm in a sling. “Take it easy for a few days, and be back to see me on Friday. I will talk to your commanding officer so he won’t have you train until then. And be sure to wear the sling even at night.” He turned toward Glenn and the others as the man left. They heard the footsteps of a newcomer approaching behind the closing door.

“Oh no, what happened here?”

Hershel stepped up to Daryl and knelt in front of him to examine the arrow stuck in his leg. Barely touching the soiled bandage, he gently tugged on the shaft to see how much fresh blood would be welling up around it. The bandage around the arrow got soaked with some blood leaking from the wound, but Glenn had expected much worse.

“Let’s get him on my table,” Hershel instructed them, getting up from the floor again even as there was a knock on the door. “Into the treatment room.” He nodded toward the room he had just come out of with his first patient. As they were crossing the room, with both Hershel and Glenn supporting Daryl now, he called out for the person outside in the hallway to come in.

The treatment room did have a table at its center that was covered with a clean white sheet. They helped Daryl lie down on it and Glenn found himself thinking that Hershel was going to be hard put to keep up with changing the sheets on this table tonight as the blood from Daryl’s leg wound soiled it.

Carl put the stew and bread next to the fireplace that heated the room, and then sat down next to Glenn on the bench standing along one wall of the room. Together, they watched as Hershel very carefully pulled down Daryl’s pants, his eyes widening at something that he saw while doing this, until he reached the arrow, revealing very muscular, very white legs. Keeping one hand pressing down on Daryl’s thigh right next to the arrow shaft after removing the flat stone that had provided some pressure on the wound until now, he grabbed the shaft with the other, braced himself, and then pulled.

Daryl screamed, bucking on the table.

Carl’s face turned white, and Glenn felt sick to his stomach.

The arrowhead and two inches of shaft pulled free of Daryl’s leg and Glenn expected the white cloth under it to turn red with blood, but there was only very little, and Hershel breathed a deep sigh of relief as he pulled Daryl’s pants further down with one hand, the other already pressing a thick white dressing against Daryl’s wound under his trousers as he went. With the pain of the arrow getting pulled out subsiding again, Daryl was only moaning softly now.

Hershel carefully lifted  raised  the dressing to make sure that the wound was no longer bleeding too badly, and then set about cleaning, dressing, and bandaging it. Once he had finished, he took off Daryl’s heavy boots and pulled his pants all the way off. Looking up at Glenn and Carl, he asked, “Could one of you bring him fresh pants from his room tomorrow? I will hand these to the maid for washing and mending.”

“Tomorrow?” Glenn asked, confused. “And what is he supposed to do tonight? Walk back to his room half naked?”

Hershel shook his head. “I want to keep him in one of my rooms for the night, to make sure the bleeding won’t get more serious again. It’s a deep wound, and right next to where you can feel a large blood vessel pulsing, so I want to watch over him tonight.” He filled a small wooden bucket with lightly steaming water from a large kettle hanging off to the side next to the fire in the hearth. He gently started cleaning the blood off Daryl’s leg - it had run down all the way to his ankle - and then spread a blanket over his legs to keep him warm..

Once the leg was cleaned up, Hershel started looking at the burn on Daryl’s chest. He carefully peeled away the singed edges of fabric that were his burned shirt stuck to his molten skin and weeping flesh, checked the wound for dirt, and then looked at Glenn for help. “An ointment was mentioned that he keeps. Do you know where he has it? With the best salve I could give him, this would still take more than a week to heal.”

Silently asking his friend for forgiveness, Glenn reached for the pouch on Daryl’s belt in which he kept his jar of ointment that he had seen Daryl use on his injuries in the cave and handed it to Hershel. The old man carefully removed the cork and smelled the contents of the small jar, raising his eyebrows in surprise as he did. “Sage,” he remarked. “I will have to talk to him about this.”

He then gently and carefully daubed two fingertips’ worth of Daryl’s precious ointment onto his burn after unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it back from his chest. Spotting several large splotches of smooth, red, molten-looking skin and a number of long, discolored scars crisscrossing on Daryl’s skin, Glenn assumed that he would not want anyone to see these, stepped back from the table, and took Carl over to the fire where they picked up Daryl’s dinner again. When he heard Carl’s stomach growling from the smell, Glenn encouraged the boy to have the untouched bowl of stew himself, assuring him that Daryl would probably not eat much more today.

By the time they returned to the table for the last time that day, Hershel had stripped off Daryl’s robes and shirt, had placed a clean dressing on the large burn  wound and was bandaging Daryl’s chest to keep it in place. When he had finished and checked the bandage on the mage’s leg, a small spot of red was beginning to show on it  the bandage around Daryl’s thigh , and Hershel took a quick peek under it to make sure that he wasn’t hemorrhaging again. Finally, he put some more of Daryl’s sage ointment onto the light burns in his palms and dressed and bandaged his hands. Once he was certain that he had done all he could for Daryl tonight, he dressed him up in a white gown that reached down  went  to Daryl’s knees and allowed for easy access both to the chest and the leg wounds .

With the events of the day crashing down on him, in pain, suffering from blood loss, and exhausted from the day’s horrors, Daryl had meanwhile started to fade in and out of consciousness. His head sagged to one side as Hershel sat him up, and Glenn hastily handed the food to Carl again to step to Daryl’s other side and help Hershel  get him off the table.

Miraculously, the mage managed to take small, limping steps as they guided him to the door of the treatment room, Carl following not just with the bread and bowls  of food but also with Daryl’s staff and robes, with all of the pouches piled on top of the red heap in his arms. At some point, Daryl had dropped a smooth, flat round stone onto the fabric, which Carl made sure to take along - with Daryl, you never knew what the stuff he was carrying could do. They passed the three men waiting in the outer room by now and turned left in the hallway, making their way farther into the medical wing until they reached a free room with an open door.

Hershel and Glenn set about getting Daryl into the bed by the narrow window while Carl started a fire in the small fireplace, hung Daryl’s robe over the back of the chair by the bed, and set the trencher with the food down next to it.

Once Glenn and Hershel had left, Carl stepped up to the bed. Daryl seemed to be asleep already. The bandage around his chest was visible above his gown’s collar. His face looked pale and drawn, with cuts and bruises from his fall. Without his staff and his red robe, he looked vulnerable and frail, and Carl wished he had never seen him like this. Until now, Daryl had seemed like a force of nature, unstoppable even when sick or injured, yet today had shattered this image of him.

“You need to heal, Daryl,” Carl whispered, reaching out for Daryl’s scarred, bandaged hand on the blankets covering him, but ultimately not touching it - he had seen the mage’s reaction to touch, and didn’t want to exhaust him even further by making him flinch.

“You need to get her back.”


	20. Chapter 20

Carol woke up to a raging headache. It was so bad that when she opened her eyes and the light of a single torch fell into them, she felt sick to her stomach with it. She barely managed to avoid throwing up on herself by covering her eyes with both hands against the agony of the light piercing her brain.

In the semi-darkness behind her hands, she tried to recall what she had seen in that brief, blinded moment.

_ Bare stone walls. A stone floor with a thin layer of straw on it. The torch lighting the scene - and running an ice pick straight into her brain. Her feet, pointing toward the torch, apparently resting on a pile of rotting straw - and now that she recalled this, she could feel the straw under her buttocks and shoulder blades. Bars. BARS. _

Her eyes flew open, and this time there was no pain - she was too frantic to check if this was true.

And it was.

There were bars in the narrow door leading out into the hallway. The torch was in a sconce on the wall opposite her door. She had been stripped of her armor and was only wearing her undergarments and regular clothes. Her breast and shoulder plates, her greaves, her gloves, her helmet, her boots - gone.

Her armor, cloak, and boots, had been taken off while she had been unconscious and she had been thrown into a cell, like a criminal.

Locked up, probably in the place where the band of robbers was hiding out.

Alone. Unarmed.

She rose from the straw heap that she had been lying on and put a hand to her head which had started hammering again. She felt a patch of a sticky substance on her temple that had also seeped into her hair, turning it into a gross mess, and she assumed that the blow she had felt had given her a scalp wound. She was probably looking pretty gruesome right now, she mused.

Once the pounding had gone back down enough so she could open her eyes without feeling nauseous again, she set out for the cell door on wobbly feet. The bars felt ice cold to her touch when her fingertips first came into contact with them. They seemed pitted, uneven, and a closer look showed her that they were rusting.

She looked up to the wall sconce, which had spider webs hanging down from it and had a slightly reddish-brown tinge to it that just  _ might _ have been a dusting of rust as well, then at the bars again, and back at the heap of rotting straw.

The heap of straw on its own could have been intentional, but the bars and the sconce certainly weren’t. This place was not well maintained, and robbers didn’t usually own keeps built from huge stone blocks and flagstones like the ones she was seeing in her walls and on the floor.

They had only taken over this place recently, but were planning to stay, at least for now - a keep, after all, was infinitely safer than a camp out in the open, consisting of heaps of leaves at worst and tents at best, especially during the winter.

Were they planning to exchange her for some sort of compromise on the part of Michonne? Or were they going to try to obtain information from her? Were they going to torture her? Rip out a fingernail or two? Cut off the whole finger - or more than one? An arm? A leg? Burn her with glowing coals? Take an eye?

Spots started dancing in front of her eyes, a black cloud of them threatening to take over her entire field of vision. Panting, Carol made her way back to her straw heap and discovered a lump of moldy bread and a wooden mug of musty smelling water next to it. She sank onto the “bed”, suppressing her disgust at the straw’s condition, and managed to lie down instead of keel over.

Where was she being held, and how could she get out of this place?

She gave herself a few moments to calm down, concentrating on the rhythm of her heart in her chest - frantic at first, fast and irregular with fear, beating so mightily that she felt her blood pounding in her fingers and toes, could all but feel her skin jumping over her pulsating jugular vein.

_ Think rational _ .

But how could she? She was a hostage in enemy territory, locked up in a cell in a dungeon. They could very well be using her right now to extort concessions from Michonne. She had to keep this from happening. A horrible thought raised its ugly head - what if she was not the only one? Daryl had been right behind her - had they taken him too? Or anyone else?

Had they killed anyone?

Slowly getting to her feet again, she staggered from the heap of straw  bed  back to the cell door and tried to look out into the hallway to see if there were more cells to her left and right, and in the wall she was looking at.

If there was a guard anywhere in this hallway, or in a guard chamber at either end, she was giving herself away with this, but she had to know.

“Hello?” Her voice was a sharp whisper in the cool, moist air. “Is anyone else in here with me?”

She heard a soft moan, disembodied, its source impossible to locate. Then a cracked voice answered her.

“‘m here, where’s here?”

She wanted to sob both in relief and frustration - relief that it wasn’t Daryl’s voice, frustration because she would have to do this with a perfect stranger - could she trust this man? Or had he been planted here by the robbers to suss out and betray her plans to them?

But again, as with the calling out, she just had to risk it - there was no other way to find out.

“I’m Carol Peletier from  the keep at Ford’s Keep - I serve the Lady Michonne. Who are you?”

.-.

Merle looked around the hall, into the laughing faces of his … Were they friends? Could friendship, real friendship, real trust among friends, even exist in this place? When you had to beware, every second of every day, of someone snatching up the wrong word said at the wrong time, and the one to next catch the club to their head would be  _ you _ \- to the cheers of the people you had believed to be your friends?

They were celebrating their “victory” over the scouting troop that had been sent from the keep by the riverbend, where the bridge led across the stream. The single greatest mistake these people had made, from Merle’s point of view, was to separate into smaller groups in order to be able to cover more territory in less time. Had they stayed together, they could easily have taken out each of the teams that had instead ambushed the smaller, isolated groups. But they had been stupid, and some of them had died, some of them had been injured - and some of them had been brought back to their keep as hostages.

Negan was hoping to get some sort of guarantee from the Lady of the keep by the river - a promise that they would be able to pursue their interests on their side of the river, while she would remain south of the river and keep her warband from crossing over and interfering with their plans.

Merle, who had heard people talk about her in taverns up to two days’ march back to where they had come from, didn’t think she would bow to coercion simply because they had three of her people. Mentioning that they were all in less than ideal shape might help her along, Merle mused, but what he had heard about her did not encourage optimism..

He just couldn’t believe that a woman who had gone to war over some minor justice issue a few years back, who had not blinked an eye when one of the people accompanying her on a negotiating visit had been killed to frighten her into submission, would give in so easily.

Once again looking around at his drinking, eating, joking … not-friends, he rose from his bench and made his way over to where Negan was sitting in his ridiculous chair, club leaning against the wall right next to him, within easy reach. He alone of all the men in the room except the guards - and Merle - wasn’t drinking alcohol.

He was frightening enough without it.

.-.

Two nights and one day had passed since they had been ambushed, since Carol had been taken, and Daryl was on the verge of going insane. He couldn’t wait to go out there, look for and find the place where she was being held -  _ she was being held, there was no way they had killed her, she was a valuable hostage, she was alive, she was being held, they hadn’t killed her, and she hadn’t been injured badly enough to just die, she was alive, she had to be alive … _ \- and get her out of there.

Yet Hershel was forcing him to stay in his room after having him carried up here, claiming that he was in no condition to go out, not even in a group, let alone on his own. Daryl was desperately trying to convince him to change his mind, offered to demonstrate how he could already cross his room without support again, how the arrow wound in his thigh didn’t incapacitate him - and who had ever heard of a burn on the chest keeping anyone from going on rescue missions? 

Yet Hershel remained uncompromising, and Michonne wasn’t having any of it unless it was with Hershel’s approval, so Daryl kept being thrown back to square one - she would not listen to his request unless Hershel were to back it up, and Hershel wouldn’t even let him get out of bed except to piss.

Glenn and Carl had been trying to brighten up his days for him but Glenn seemed preoccupied and distracted, and kept excusing himself for odd lengths of time. When he returned, invariably there was a smile upon his face and a light in his eyes that Daryl hadn’t seen there before, at least not this particular kind of light.

He had his suspicions - the keep was full of people, after all, with not just the warband in but full of maids and guards and whatnot - but kept them to himself since he didn’t want to embarrass the younger man.

At least not overly much.

Most of the time.

“Who is she?”

Glenn almost dropped the plate he was practising with. Catching it, he stared at Daryl, propped up in his bed, with wide eyes, trying to look innocent.

“Who … is … who?” His voice was a self-conscious croak.

“The girl you’re mooning over.”

“What gi- … There’s no girl!” Glenn blushed a deep crimson, shaking his head so violently that he lost his balance for a second. “You’re having delusions, did you get hit in the head? Or are you running a fever now?”

“Didn’t get hit at all, which is why I notice - head’s jus’ fine,” Daryl pointed out. His face did look pretty banged up from hitting the ground when he had passed out right after Carol had been abducted, but technically, he was right - he hadn’t been hit by an enemy.

In a way, he had hit himself - with his magic.

Every magic spell cast to harm another living being had repercussions on the caster that were related to the nature of the spell being cast - only the intensity of the damage was lower than that to the actual target. The six fireballs he’d sent out for the sources of the noises they’d heard had singed his hands. After sending a fire whip toward the man who had hit Carol over the head with a staff and catching him in the chest, Daryl had suffered a burn wound on his own chest in turn. There would never be an army made up entirely of mages for just this reason - after casting three or four effective attack spells each, they would all be out of commission with the injuries they had inflicted on themselves.

And this was probably the only reason why mages hadn’t taken over the world yet. Without these repercussions, they would have been invincible - and Daryl had long been suspecting that someone had somehow put these repercussions in place to stop mages from becoming all-powerful demigods. The attack spells they had at their disposal, if implemented at the right moment, together with spells affecting and changing the environment without doing any direct harm, could turn a battle by their very nature. There was very little you could do against a host of small fireballs jumping over half your army, incapacitating dozens, if not hundreds, of your men. But the more damaging the spell, the more damage the caster took, which automatically limited just about every mage’s desire to do direct harm on a large scale.

But what he wouldn’t have given, two days ago, to still be unharmed himself just so he would have been able to go after Carol immediately, instead of returning to the keep, fighting for every single step along the way, to have his injuries taken care of - while she was gods knew where, with her abductors doing gods knew what to her while he was lounging here.

In an effort to take his mind off these gloomy thoughts again, he returned to taunting Glenn about what he suspected was a crush that he’d encountered here.

“You keep runnin’ away, stay gone for some time, then come back all blushing and giggling. You’ve found yourself a girl here, ‘m sure of it. ‘m not blind.”

Glenn blushed some more.

“A girl’s not the only reason why I might want to leave your grumpy self alone for a while,” he pointed out. “You’re not making it easy for us here with your constant griping, and always cursing Hershel for keeping you here instead of letting you run out there into the cold - it’s freezing at night now, have I told you? - so you can ruin yourself again right away. You had a cold just three weeks back, and were injured two days ago. He’s doing the right thing by keeping you in here to heal.”

“Ain’t none of your business.”

Glenn sighed - so it was back to grumpy mode again.

He looked out the window to pretend he was checking the time, then faked surprise. “Wow, it’s getting late, I had better find out what’s for lunch so I’ll know what to get you!” He put his plate and staff down and set out for the door.

“You know what I’d enjoy, like, really enjoy?”

Turning back toward Daryl, expecting him to list one or more favorite dishes, Glenn raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture.

“The Doc comin’ in here to tell me I can leave.”

Rolling his eyes, Glenn slipped out into the hallway.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mention of child abuse.

After obtaining permission from Negan to investigate the keep by the ford a little the night after the ambush, Merle had spent the better part of the morning until now - the last hour before sunrise and the gray dusk of dawn - coming down here first on horseback and then on foot so as to be less conspicuous. By now, the sun was up and had begun to warm the cold air so his breath was no longer forming clouds in front of his face.

He had found a thicket close by the bridge to hide behind, perfectly located for sneaking peeks through the gate which had been opened some time ago once the sun had been up. The guards standing watch to the left and right of the gate couldn’t spy him back here, even though the leaves had seriously started falling by now, leaving the branches almost bare.

One of the men by the gate now turned back and called something into the courtyard over his shoulder, and the next moment, a figure in a red robe limped into view, very slowly, apparently leaning on something for support.

Merle’s breath caught in his throat.

The mage.

He’d heard the men who had been in the group which had taken on the search party with the mage in it bragging about him getting injured, by his own spells as well as an arrow to the leg. He had dismissed it as overconfident lies at the time, but it seemed to be true. The mage’s left leg seemed to be injured, for he was, Merle now saw, leaning on his staff as he walked, and his free hand went to his chest from time to time - so that was where his own fire spell had struck him.

Merle’s heart picked up its pace - if he returned to Negan with news that he had managed to take out the spell caster once and for all, there was no telling what his reward might be. Keeping his eyes on the mage in his bright, conspicuous robes, Merle felt the ground for his bow. His blood was singing with excitement - killing this man might be his way out of boring and dangerous assignments, or even get him a lifelong reprieve from Negan’s club that served as the constant threat keeping them all in line.

His fingers found the string of his bow and wandered over the ground to find the bow itself while his other hand crept to his back, reaching out for the quiver. Grasping an arrow by the fletching, he pulled it out - but as he did so, the hand simultaneously lifting the bow brushed several rustling branches on the bushes he was hiding behind, and the heads of both guards whipped around, scanning the expanse between the drawbridge across the keep’s moat and the one across the ford. One of the guards started walking toward him even as the other one rushed inside to help the mage back to the keep for cover.

Heart racing as he realized that he had to get away without actually taking a shot at the mage, and his escape across the bridge would be a narrow one even so, he rose, bow in hand, nocked his arrow and launched it in the direction of the guard coming for him as a gesture of defiance before starting to run for the bridge.

The second guard came back out through the gate and across the bridge now, also running toward Merle. He glanced over his shoulder to check if the first one was catching up to him - and stepped on a fist-sized, round stone that turned under his boot as his weight came down on it. Merle crashed to the ground, bow splintering, and at the very last moment he remembered that rolling was better than landing on your hands, which nearly always resulted in broken arms or wrists, so he tucked in his head and shoulders and went with it, hitting the stony ground with his shoulder and rolling on toward the bridge over rocks and gravel. He sat up the moment he stopped rolling and looked back at his enemies to gauge their distance, his chances at getting in another shot, his chances of getting away.

The second guard turned back toward the keep once more as the first one was drawing closer, and Merle heard him calling out a name.

“Daryl!”

For valuable seconds he sat motionless, staring at the red robed figure limping out through the keep’s gate now, one hand spread across his chest as if to protect the wound hidden there, or hold in the pain caused by it. Allegedly, the man he’d hit with a spell had avoided a severe burn only because he’d been wearing chainmail, but that hadn’t prevented the mage from getting hit by his punishment. Burns, his numbed mind let him know, completely unsolicited, were among the most painful wounds. He shied back from the thought, from the memories it invoked.

The mage’s name was the same as his dead brother’s.

_ What are the chances of that? _

_ Who says he’s limping from a recent wound instead of an old one? Instead of having his leg burned in a fire? _

“We ain’t got no ropes for tyin’ him up, you got a spell for that?”

The mage had crossed the keep’s bridge by now and Merle had a better view of him, now that he was out of the keep’s shadow. 

_ Fifteen-year-old Merle stared at his parents’ house burning down from across the road, holding the jug of ale that he had brought back from the inn for his father. The neighbors were milling around the house, trying to organize a bucket line, but the house was ablaze and nothing stirred in it. His parents. His brother, only seven years old. Nothing moved, and there were no screams for help as the roof crashed down, sending clouds of sparks into the sky. A flaming ruin, a bonfire, with his family at its heart. _

Snapping out of the memory, Merle started breathing again. 

His baby brother was dead. There had been no sounds inside the house, and the neighbors hadn’t pulled out any survivors. His whole family had died that day.

Yet the man limping toward him now, leaning on a mage’s staff, wearing a mage’s robes, with  an injury on his chest that had been inflicted by his own magic spell, had his brother’s name, and his brother’s hair, and if he allowed himself to think of Daryl, of what he had looked like, of how old he would be now had he lived, there was a remote possibility that he might look like this.

The man’s face, Merle saw now, was unmarred - there were no scars, no burns, no singed-off hair. He wasn’t hunched over from constricted burn keloids on his arms or legs or torso. He didn’t look as if he had ever been less than one yard from a fire - how could that be, if this was  _ his _ Daryl? With the exception of the injuries he had suffered in the fight three days ago, and the cuts and bruises on his face, he looked … healthy.

Merle pushed himself up off the ground, heart aching. He wanted nothing more than to stay and find out if this mage was the brother he had believed dead for twenty years - yet they were on opposite sides in a war and he couldn’t allow himself to be caught by the guards.

One last look at the dark blond mage, one last effort to etch the man’s features into his memory.

“Daryl …”

The name of his younger brother on his lips for the first time in decades was softer than a whisper - and then he turned around and ran for the bridge as fast as his feet would take him.

.-.

Four days had passed since their defeat on the forest’s edge, in the foothills of the mountain range. Four days in which Daryl had almost lost his mind, nearly been the target of an assassin who had escaped, and begged his keepers to let him go out for Carol every single day.

He wasn’t a religious man, but almost wished that he were right now - so he would know who to pray to. His robes aligned him with the gods of Neutrality, obviously, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he believed in them. The things going on in the world right now certainly didn’t match up with the notion that there even  _ were _ gods of Neutrality, let alone Good. So he lay on his bed, patiently, as Hershel gently unwound the bandage from his thigh and peeled off the dressing under it to check on the arrow wound beneath.

When Hershel’s index finger carefully probed the skin around the hole in Daryl’s thigh, he hissed and flinched back in pain. Hershel’s eyebrows moved up and Daryl wanted to kick himself for being so obvious.

“So this hurts?” The old man kept probing the skin around the injury in ever larger circles, and Daryl, knowing there was no way around it, nodded sullenly.

Hershel, meanwhile, took great care not to look at any of his patient’s other scars as he examined his wound. Clearly, the mage had gone through hard times if his skin was anything to go by. Most of the marks scattered across his body had to be burn scars, or so he assumed from their molten-looking, shiny surface. There were a few particularly vicious ones across the backs of his legs and up his back, up to his shoulders. He guessed that Daryl had been caught in a fire and pinned down by some burning roof or ceiling beams, trapping him until someone had managed to pull him out.

But there were more, and they, he knew just from looking at them, had a far darker story to tell - worse even than getting caught in a fire.

Some of them were narrow white lines, slightly raised, slashing across his chest and back. And then there were the discolored ones, the ones with the puckered skin that looked as if dirt had gotten caught in them just under the surface of the new skin, darkening it; so wide that, if your eyes unfocused while looking at them, they all but morphed back into the gaping wounds that had left them.

It took many beatings, Hershel guessed, and cruel ones, to leave such marks on a child’s skin, and so many of them.

And there were those left by the wars the mage - and presumably the warrior - had fought in, of stab wounds, sword cuts, of his own spells exacting their punishment.

Yet he didn’t mention the burns or the whipping and belt, or even the scars left by war - he quietly worked around them while cleaning Daryl’s arrow wound and the fresh burn in the center of his chest, carefully applied a fingertip full of Daryl’s own sage salve to each injury, covered them with fresh dressings which he fixed in place with fresh, clean bandages before collecting the used ones with their red and yellowish stains on them. When he handed Daryl his shirt, the loose soft pants that he usually wore under his robe, and the red robe that signaled his profession, he took note of the fact that Daryl relaxed visibly the moment he had them back, and even more after he had started putting them back on.

“Since you’re not sayin’ anything, I guess you still want me to stay in.”

It wasn’t a question. He read people well.

“It’s cold and wet out there. You’d be miserable.” Hershel almost regretted his words the second they were out of his mouth.

Darly, however, didn’t blow up at him - instead he let out a short, hard laugh, almost cruel, and Hershel braced himself.

“If you think this is the worst I’ve been through, or being miserable in the cold and rain would be the worst I’m going to go through …” He trailed off, not finishing the sentence, probably, Hershel thought, because he was such an immensely private person and didn’t want to give anything about himself away to a relative stranger. Hershel thought of the two ropy swaths of dark, nubby scar tissue slashing across his lower back, a small part of it smudged and overlaid by a patch of the shiny smooth red scar tissue from that fire he had been trapped in.

“Obviously, we’ve each had worse things than cold and wet weather in our lives,” Hershel said carefully. “That doesn’t mean I’ll send you out there, however. The pain around your arrow wound says that the tip was dirty, and that some of that dirt went into your wound when that arrow hit you. With the wound warm and dry, we can control the slight infection in there and it will blow over in a few days. If you are out there, however, in the cold and rain, and your body is busy just keeping itself warm and functional … “ He gently shook his head. “Which is why you’re not supposed to go back out again too quick- ”

Daryl raised a weary hand, cutting Hershel off in mid-word.

“I’m super tired of hearing this again and again and again, even with medical reasons added in,” he muttered. “I can’t wait for the end of it, my eyes won’t stay open. By all means … tell me all that after I catch some pillow time so I can at least appreciate it, maybe learn somethin’. But right now …” Daryl shook his head very slowly, and when Hershel rose from the chair next to the bed from which he’d been talking to Daryl as he was working on him, his eyes couldn’t even focus on Hershel because he was too tired. He really  _ was _ exhausted.

“My other reason for keeping you in here is that you desperately need rest. You needed it badly when you first arrived, and you definitely need it now more than ever.” He raised an appeasing hand before Daryl could even think about protesting.

“Hear me out,” Hershel pleaded. “You’ve probably been pushing your body for months or even years, traveling from one place to the next, summer and winter alike. You didn’t know where you were going to sleep on any given night, or whether you’d even have a roof over your heads. You didn’t know who this stranger was that was also staying at this inn and kept eyeing you all the time and made you feel you’d have to stay awake that night so you’d not get robbed or killed in your sleep, or see Carol get raped. You had to obtain money somehow, to even be able to afford the room at the inn and some food, so in between that, you fought and risked your lives for other people’s quarrels. A stressful life.”

Daryl just grunted. There was no need for him to confirm any of this. They both knew it to be true.

“And there must have been times when you  _ were _ sick but had no choice but to be out in the open and move on from one place to the next, sleep in the open, in the rain and cold, sick, exhausted from being on the road, or even fight in a battle. Or maybe you couldn’t stay in that village, because the people back there distrusted mages, or the lord with whom you had tried to get employment was eyeing Carol with far too much lust so she didn’t feel safe there. So you sucked it up and moved on, pushed on into darkness, rain, or snow, maybe pitched a small tent in a forest or a field.”

At this point Daryl had stopped commenting in any way, even with short grunts. This was hitting far too close to home - and he guessed that Hershel was fully aware of it.

But he wasn’t here to listen to Hershel waxing poetic over him -  _ him! _ \- as he helped him slip back into his robe without pulling on the wound on his chest too much. He realized that he was being discourteous and unfriendly, but he was also exhausted and in pain, and he had reached the limit of his patience, at least for today.

“She’s a prisoner, and one of ‘em was here to spy on us.” He surprised himself with how calm his voice sounded when he wasn’t calm at all inside. But outright raging at Hershel, who was only trying to do what he thought was best for him, wasn’t the thing to be doing right now. “Who knows what they’re planning, so I need to find her, and bring her back, as soon as possible.”

He forced himself to meet Hershel’s eyes, and the deep concern he saw there moved him.

“If you go out there you might die.”

“I  _ will  _ die one way or another.”

“But not today, or tomorrow.”

“I definitely won’t wait  _ another _ day. If I don’t go today, I  _ will _ go tomorrow.”

Hershel gave a deep sigh. “If that is your decision, I cannot stop you. Even injured, I would guess you could physically overpower me, and without using magic. But do me one favor. No, two.”

Daryl raised a questioning eyebrow, prompting him to continue without promising anything yet.

“Stay in bed today, don’t strain your leg at all. Keep warm, and try to sleep as much as possible.”

“What for?” Daryl’s confused frown was almost more of a question than his actual words.

Hershel sat down on the chair next to Daryl’s bed again. Glenn had been sitting on it until Hershel had come in to check on his patient. His training tools were still lying on the floor next to the bed, and Hershel took care not to disturb them.

“You were running on fumes when you came here - all of you. Life on the road takes its toll, and when you get sick, or hurt, and don’t take the time to get truly well again because there are always reasons to say ‘just this one more thing, then I’ll get some rest’, your body will just keep declining until you are  _ too _ sick to do whatever it is that you do for a living. It will just get worse until you end up in the ditch by the road.”

Something about Hershel’s voice as he said all this struck a chord in Daryl. There was a deep sadness there, a terrible loss. He was afraid to ask, and would also have considered it insensitive, so he just stayed silent as Hershel gathered himself.

“Promise me that you will rest today. There is not an ounce of fat on your body. Stay in your bed, eat your fill, sleep. Let your leg heal - it will have to carry you wherever you will be going to search for her. Let your chest heal, for a wound like that in this place makes you very vulnerable.” Lowering his voice, the old man went on.

“You don’t know in what condition you are going to find her, how much help she will require from you to make it back. You have to be prepared to carry her back all the way - and how will you do this, if you drive your own body beyond exhaustion? If you set out with an infected wound in your leg and a festering burn on your chest?”

Daryl felt uncomfortable at the deep concern in Hershel’s voice and eyes. He had no idea what they had done to deserve such an emotional outpour, so much support. But despite his exhaustion that was pulling on his eyelids, he was worried sick, hell, he  _ dreamed _ about her being held by those assholes which made his nights hell as well, and he couldn’t hold it in. His fingers, Hershel noted, were worrying the smooth stone that he was always either holding or keeping next to his bed.

“But that’s just it - I don’t know in what condition I’ll find ‘er. What they’ll  _ do  _ to her. What they  _ are _ doing to her.”  _ She has to be alive, they can’t have killed her, she hasn’t been hurt badly enough to have died, she has to be alive …  _ He bit his lower lip, which was raw already from his teeth tugging on it for hours every day. “I can’t give them too much time to do with her as they please.”

“So let’s find a compromise between our worries for her and my worry for you.”


	22. Chapter 22

Five days since the ambush. Five days since she had been taken.

The day they were going out.

Just Glenn and him.

Michonne had told him in no uncertain terms that she was not sending her warband into a fight again without knowing what they would be up against. Before allowing the warband to set out once more to deal with those bandits, this time she wanted to know where they were hiding and how many of them there were. She was not going to allow her men to be this badly outnumbered again, or make another serious tactical mistake like the one that had cost them so much the first time around. Her men deserved better, and she keenly felt her responsibility for their lives and their safety. Until now, none of the men Abraham had already sent out since the ambush in the foothills had found the bandits’ hiding place - so he’d have to be the one to do it, and Glenn had instantly volunteered to accompany him.

The younger man was worried that Daryl would not only push himself beyond his limits in his eagerness to find the bandits so they’d be able to free Carol, but might actually attempt to rescue her on his own. Given Daryl’s current physical and mental state, Glenn didn’t think this was advisable, and wanted to be there for him both for support and safety, and as a voice of reason to keep him from any rash actions he might consider once he found the bandits’ lair.

Daryl had told Michonne that he wasn’t going to return before he knew where the bandits were hiding and how many of them they were facing. He was secretly hoping to be able to get Carol out of there before things got dirty, sneak her out right away, but he would have to wait and see what he’d find at the end of his search, and be prepared to come back on his own, without her, if getting her out without help should prove too difficult, or if he was forced to leave the two other men behind who had been taken with her. Despite his distress, he still knew that it wouldn’t do to leave people behind on whom these bastards would take out their anger if only one of the prisoners were to be broken out.

So now he was standing in the courtyard, his pack on his back minus the maps which he had handed over to Michonne either as gifts in case he did not come back, or for copying if he made it. She had told him, with a warm smile on her face, that she was going to have her scribe working on them every day so she would be able to give his maps back to him the day he returned to her keep.

Under his robe, he was wearing not just his own usual outfit but an extra warm layer that Michonne had had him issued with. Daryl suspected that he was seeing Hershel’s hand in this, but with the cold of the approaching winter biting into his nose and his bare fingertips, he was not going to complain. He was wearing new, sturdy boots, too, and he’d been given extra blankets for his bedroll. 

The stable master, who had a soft spot for the mage since he had shared some of his herbal tea with him that was his cold remedy after listening to the man cough all through saddling a horse a few days before, had offered him a pack horse for their gear, but Daryl had refused. A pack horse was slow, loud and conspicuous, when they needed to move quickly and without being seen at all, so they were only taking what they could carry on their backs.

The young juggler was standing next to him, likewise bundled up in more warm clothing than he had ever owned in his life, a pack on his back with the things that he couldn’t be without - food, water, a change of warm clothes in case they got wet. They both carried provisions so they would not lose time finding food or hunting for it. Of course Daryl was carrying his staff and his crossbow, but all he needed them for was fighting - he hadn’t brought any of his gear for setting traps or dressing game. Glenn was carrying a short sword and several knives from Michonne’s armory that he would use if there was no other hope at all - he had never been in a battle in his life and hadn’t been trained for one, so Daryl didn’t want Glenn risking his life for this.

It was early, with the sun only just peering over the horizon, but Michonne had still decided to see them off personally, and Andrea had joined her. They were standing in the courtyard, hands clasped tightly. Michonne admired the courage of these two men who were willing to risk their lives so others might be saved. Of course she knew that Daryl would have gone to find Carol no matter what, and that he could probably free her and be on his merry way without ever turning back. But her men had been captured as well, and she appreciated his eagerness in going out there to find the place they were all being held - the woman he didn’t realize he loved, and two men of her warband - and then come back here so they could  _ all _ be freed and brought back home.

The small door set into the large gate of the keep creaked as it opened and Hershel stepped out into the yard, followed by Carl. The old man was holding a small bundle that he handed to Daryl once he reached the small group.

“Medical supplies.”

Daryl nodded his thanks and swung down his backpack to fit the bag into it - there was room enough since he had insisted on traveling light.

Once he was all set up again, his pack and his bow on his back, his staff in his hand, his hood up against the sharp bite of the lingering cold of night on the morning air, he nodded at both Hershel and the two women. Finally, he gently placed one hand on Carl’s shoulder and squeezed it briefly as the boy looked up at him, eyes brimming. No words were necessary, Daryl felt. They already knew that he would be giving his best, so there was no need to say it.

Glenn, so much more outgoing, surprised all of them by hugging Hershel and thanking him for taking such good care of Daryl, almost crushing Carl in a bear hug and tousling his hair, and then bowing to Michonne and Andrea. And then his face lit up as the door to the keep opened one final time and a young woman stepped out into the yard, her dark hair held back in a braid, her eyes on Glenn, a brave smile on her face despite the tear running down her right cheek.

Hershel looked surprised for some reason. There seemed to be a story here, Daryl thought.

Not that he himself was surprised.

Glenn, while obviously very happy to see the girl, was blushing furiously, and Daryl couldn’t hold back a smug grin as he looked at him, blue eyes twinkling as he raised an eyebrow.

“No crush, hm?” His smirk seemed to light up the whole courtyard.

Then both men bowed to Michonne again, turned around, and left the courtyard.

.-.

“So, I was right.”

Daryl sounded highly satisfied, and for the first time since he’d limped into the keep with a dirty bandage around his leg days before, he had a spring in his step again, even though he was still limping. Glenn wanted to die at the sight of his smug grin, but tried to maintain his composure.

“About what?”

“The girl you’ve found yourself in the keep.”

“She’s just … she helped set up the hall for the night when I performed, it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

They walked on in comfortable silence, Daryl in the lead, his eyes everywhere. He had recruited a small group of flying insects to look out ahead for him, and he carefully scanned the ground for signs of passing feet once they had left the road and veered off into rough territory. His free hand was curled around the smooth round amulet stone, and his thumb rubbed over it every now and then.

Daryl had found signs of a single person passing through here in haste, which would fit in with the man who had been seen and almost caught spying on them and had only gotten away at the last second - broken twigs dangling from bushes, deep, smudged footprints betraying the haste and carelessness of the man running along here in not covering the tracks he had made, stones with the moss that had grown on them now facing the ground after getting turned around by a careless kick. He kept looking out for them, following them, making a mental map and comparing it to the ones he had left behind - maps he knew by heart after studying them for days while he’d been laid up.

There was a keep somewhere in this area as far as he remembered, up north, nameless, abandoned, and he had a feeling like he should try to find that first. After all, they did have to stay somewhere, they needed a place where they could lock up their hostages, and with winter undeniably here now, an abandoned keep would be infinitely better than a tent camp.

He was also beginning to suspect that the people they were hunting were the ones whose slaves he and Carol had freed one night several weeks ago, and that the group that had attacked them at the cave had also consisted of members of this group - for how many different groups of marauders could there be in this area? 

They had come upon their camp by pure chance, spying one of their guards from a distance and then overhearing him taunting the girls he’d been watching over - locked in a cage, without food, water, bedding, sufficient clothing, huddled together for warmth and comfort. When the guard had stepped off into the darkness to relieve himself, Daryl had quickly made his way to the cage and disintegrated the lock with a combination of a coarse, black powder he was carrying, and a spark spell.

Once the girls had come out of their cage, he and Carol had guided them to the village they had passed just an hour before, gotten them two rooms at the inn there, and informed the mayor that there were slavers in the area. The mayor had promised to keep the girls safe, had sent guards to cover the inn, promised to send a group to find the slavers the next day, and had thanked Carol and Daryl for what they had done.

Unfortunately, the slavers apparently hadn’t been as grateful. If it was indeed them they were now hunting, they owed Michonne for her men getting ambushed, injured and captured, and he had no idea how to make this up to the families of the men who had been killed in the ambush when he had brought this upon them all.

But how could he have left those girls behind, locked up in a cage like animals?

That night, they made their camp in a not-quite-cave on the fringe of the foothills, the mountains looming over them. The night was moonless, with clouds covering the sky and hiding the red moon and the stars. As they were cooking a thick stew with beans, carrots, and potatoes, along with some dried bacon that Daryl had quickly cut into tiny pieces with a viciously sharp knife to force some taste into their meal, Glenn looked up at the rolling clouds. It was fully dark already, and he was careful to shield their small cook fire from anyone still out there on the plains at the foot of the mountain range.

“I’ve been meaning to ask … if you don’t mind …” He lowered his head to look at Daryl who was leaning over their small kettle.

“Dunno if I mind. Need to know first what you wanna ask.” Daryl shrugged.

Taking heart, Glenn took a deep breath. “Does the red moon … boost your spells? And is casting them more difficult when another moon is up, or the red moon is hidden, like it is tonight?”

With a quick glance up at the overcast sky, Daryl shook his head. “Don’t believe in the gods. Not in any good ones, anyway, and that kinda cancels out the others as well, I guess.” He turned back to his cooking. “No, the moon don’t affect me either way, either the red one or the others.”

“So, why is there this elaborate system of good, neutral, and evil, if you don’t believe it anyway? What’s the point?”

Daryl arched one eyebrow. It stood out in sharp relief in the firelight illuminating his face from below. Glenn noted again how careful Daryl was to never get too close to the fire - despite the cold he had taken off is robe so his long, wide sleeves wouldn’t get near it. “It don’t matter if  _ I _ believe it or not. I don’t believe in it, and I don’t need it, or rely on it. There are others that do. I know mages of all three orientations that do believe in it, and if you believe in it, I guess your moon being hidden would affect your casting.”

“You know mages of all orientations?” Glenn sounded fascinated. “I thought you only trained among yourselves, so you’d only know neutral mages?”

Daryl shook his head. “‘s not like that. At first, you don’t know your orientation, so how would they separate you into groups, based on something you yourself don’t even know yet? Also, you don’t actually get to choose. It’s chosen for you, based on your actions and choices during your training and your final test.”

“So I guess you’re lucky if you don’t get handed black robes, hm?”

Daryl’s head came up and his eyes all but skewered Glenn. “What are you implying here?”

Glenn didn’t quite know how he had done it, but apparently he had managed to piss off his only companion for this night and the next few days to come, and the look in Daryl’s eyes promised nothing good. He felt his face growing hot when he remembered how, during the first few days of their acquaintance, he had felt that Daryl’s color might be black rather than red. How wrong he had been, and how ashamed he was now for thinking that about him. Glenn raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Nothing, I wasn’t implying anything, it’s just … If you don’t know how what you do will be seen by your teachers, or if maybe they don’t know your motives and just … get the wrong idea about you, based on your choices or whatever … you might end up wearing black, and have people constantly judging you for it, and assuming things about you, when you are really a good person, and they just didn’t see that?”

“I’ve never heard of that happening.” Daryl’s voice sounded flat, cold - angry.

Stirring the bean and potato stew one last time, he tasted one steaming hot spoonful of it and then filled their bowls from the kettle, careful as always to stay away both from the fire and the hot kettle itself. Grateful for something hot to fill his stomach and warm his hands which were going numb from the cold, Glenn thanked him for the food and started to eat - but Daryl didn’t answer him again that night.


	23. Chapter 23

Merle entered the dank, wet hallway, lined with spider webs hanging down from the ceiling like curtains, holding his torch up high so he’d see every critter scuttling around down here. He loathed bugs and spiders and hoped that he would get to leave again soon.

After one of their hostages had died of his injuries and they had found out that the remaining two had been talking across the hallway, the man had been taken into another part of the moldy dungeon. Thus, Merle was met with absolute silence but for the constant dripping of water. He had come to see the woman so he could get some information out of her on the numbers they were facing here, on whether or not the lord of the keep was going to agree to some sort of truce, on how well trained the troops in that keep by the riverbend were.

She had been kept in total darkness for more than a day, and he hoped that this would make her more receptive to his questions. The sooner she gave him what he wanted, the sooner she would get light and food again - and maybe even air once a week, who knew. He was feeling generous today.

When the light of his torch fell into her cell, she first turned her face away, eyes closed.

“Yeah, bet that stings, don’t it?” he jeered, banging the cudgel he’d brought against the rusty bars of her cell door. As she was still facing away from the light, the sharp metallic sound took her by surprise and she flinched slightly, but then she slowly turned her head to look him in the eye.

“That was your purpose, wasn’t it?” Her voice, though cracked with thirst, sounded scathing.

“My purpose don’t concern you, lady.” Stepping up to the bars, Merle began sliding his cudgel across them, producing a ringing sound that grated on his nerves - back and forth, back and forth. He saw in her eyes that the sound was getting to her as well, so he kept it up.

“Tell me ‘bout your keep, your lord, your army, why don’t you, and I might let you go.”

“We both know that you will never let me go. You want me for information, and as leverage. You can’t let me go. I would betray you and your plans to my people, and you can’t allow that. I’m dead anyway.”

“Why so gloomy, pretty lady? I might not let you go, but wouldn’t a bath be nice? Fresh, clean clothes? A bed instead of moldy straw? Maybe a room up in the keep, with a window, and a pitcher of water to wash yourself every day - instead of rotting in this hole in the ground until the day you die?”

At this, he expected the light to die in her eyes, but she kept meeting his glare, not backing down. Intrigued, he dragged his cudgel across the bars one last time and then inserted his key in the lock. Her face went still. She clearly hadn’t expected him to be able to enter her cell. If he could get physically close to her, he could hurt her. Harm her. Kill her.

And then she surprised him by standing up to meet him face to face.

“You can do whatever you want to me.”

Grudgingly, he had to admit to himself that he admired her guts. He had seen men breaking down and crying at this point in their “interrogation”, yet here she was, a lithe woman, slightly built, unarmed, who had been locked up in the dark for more than a day without food or water, and she was telling him to fuck off. This was going to be interesting.

“And if I don’t do it to you but to the guy we caught with you?”

“As a soldier, you’re prepared to die. He would expect me to be silent. I would expect the same of him.” 

He liked her spunk, her defiant tone of voice, but he was not here to enjoy this conversation. He was here to break her and obtain information from her that they needed. So he calmly reached out with one hand, set his fingers against her chest, and looked her in the eye as he pushed her down.

She fell back onto the soggy, moldy straw heap without a sound and prepared to get right back up again, but he kicked her feet out from under her. Breaking her will early on was essential - he couldn’t have her talking back to him if Negan should decide to accompany him for one of his visits in the next few days. So he leaned down, getting into her face, letting his breath hit her face as he spoke again.

“You will learn your place, or you will die. You will answer me, or you will die. You will do as I say, or someone you love might die.” He stepped back, watching the effect his words were having on her, and it was … amazing.

Carol’s mind was racing. How had he found out? She hadn’t even known for very long herself. She had never told anyone. Not even Daryl knew about it. So how could this despicable excuse for a human being know that there  _ was _ someone she loved?

And how had she not known that they had Daryl? Was he being kept somewhere else, like the other warrior they had taken away after they had started plotting how to get out of here?

_ Did they have Daryl? _

This changed everything. She would have readily died herself to keep him safe. She would have readily died to keep everyone back at the riverbend safe, all those scullions, maids and cooks. Hershel, Glenn, Carl. They weren’t all warriors, they didn’t all know how to defend themselves during an attack. They needed others to keep them safe, and she was their first line of defense right now. If she didn’t give away what she knew, she was buying Michonne time to plan their defense, or maybe come and bring the fight here, instead of settling this at her own home.

But there was no way, no way at all, that she could allow Daryl to die for her silence. No way she would survive it.

This would break her, she knew.

And then he asked a question that made her blood freeze.

“What can you tell me about that neutral mage in your camp?”

.-.

They didn’t see the sun rising. The sky was still covered by clouds from one horizon to the other, and a cold wind started sucking the heat out of them as they ventured out again onto the open plain. The only difference was that they were wandering through cold, diffuse bright light instead of huddling in the dark around the glowing embers of their fire, trying not to freeze to death.

Daryl hadn’t spoken again, and Glenn dreaded the coming days in his company. He had no idea how to apologize since he didn’t know what had pissed him off so much about that question on the color of the robes that newly minted mages were issued. Maybe they had wanted to give  _ him _ black robes at first? Once again, he remembered his own doubts about the color of Daryl’s robes back at the cave, and felt ashamed of himself. After all that he had done to save or protect others in the time Glenn had known him, the choice should rather have been between red and white robes, he thought.

The hours dragged on in silence. Daryl was clearly still reading tracks on the ground, but not commenting on them in any way. The previous day he had at least begun to teach Glenn, explaining to him what he was seeing on the ground and how to interpret it. Today, he just doggedly followed the trail he was seeing and Glenn wasn’t, without so much as looking back to see if Glenn was even keeping up with him.

But after some time, around mid-morning, he started limping again, only slightly at first, but worse as the day wore on. Finally, Glenn reached the point where he had to speak up. Daryl’s bone-headedness was putting them in danger.

“I’m sorry if this is pissing you off again, but you need to take a break. Your leg needs some rest.”

Daryl stopped dead in his tracks without turning back and Glenn braced himself for harsh and hurtful words - but then Daryl wordlessly swung down his backpack and crossbow, found a boulder that would protect them against the cutting wind, and limped over to it, settling down on his bedroll with his bad leg stretched out in front of him and the other pulled up so his knee touched his chin, his robe wrapped around himself.

“How much longer until we get to this abandoned keep that you remember?”

When Daryl looked up from the ground, his breath puffing up in front of his face like small white clouds, Glenn was shocked at the lines of pain in his face, but the mask was back in place within seconds, only his eyes betraying what was going on inside the mage.

“Two hours, maybe three, if we keep slowing down - if I keep slowing us down.”

Glenn wanted to shake him with frustration.

“Man, you’re not slowing us down on purpose. You came back to our keep with an arrow in your leg just six days ago. Give yourself a break. So what if it takes us three hours instead of two?”

_ How to make him see? _

“We don’t know what they are doing to her. Two hours instead of three might mean the difference between life and death in the end.”

Daryl’s voice was barely a whisper on the shrieking wind. The bleak look in his eyes made Glenn’s heart turn in his chest.

“What could they do that’s so bad?”

The next moment, Glenn wished he had never asked. The pain in Daryl’s eyes was worse now than when Hershel had yanked the arrow out of his leg and pulled his burned shirt away from the wound on his chest. He had never seen such anguish in human eyes.

“They will want information,” Daryl whispered, and Glenn was reading his lips more than hearing the actual words. “They will starve her, torture her … and worse. But she won’t talk.”

This time, Glenn decided not to ask.

“Well, if we’re there three hours from now we can try to find her and get her out right away.”

“I can’t do that.” Daryl shook his head.

Glenn stared at him.

“They’ve got three people - her, and two of Michonne’s men. I can’t get her out and leave them behind. They would punish them. They would do … unspeakable things to make them talk and get revenge.”

“So we -?”

“So we gather information - number of fighters, number of guards, guard rotations, outposts - and take it back so we can plan our attack. Maybe, if we’re lucky, get a clue on where they’re keeping her and the others. But there’s no way we can sneak out three prisoners from right under their noses without them noticing - and they might be in bad shape, too.” Daryl felt each word searing into his conscience. He was finding it hard to breathe, and not just because of the ice cold wind racing past them despite the boulder they were hiding behind. The thought of finding the place where she was being held and  _ not _ taking her back with him was impossible to contain. He wanted to jump up and pace, but his leg was burning - he did need the rest.

But why was his heart hurting like this at the thought of going back without her? Why was the fate of the other two men leaving him cold by comparison? Why was his fear for  _ her _ , his need to get  _ her _ back first, alone, if need be, so overwhelming, when he had always cared equally about everyone fighting on his side?

What was it that made Carol special to him?

A word flashed through his mind, there and gone again, a shooting star giving him a bright path to follow through a neverending night - but could it be?

And right on the heels of this thought, he found his answer. Even if it was true, he was certain that she didn’t feel the same way about him - all he was doing here was setting himself up for more heartache. To her, he was a fellow warrior fighting against the evil they had seen lifting its head all over the continent - and that would never change. He was never going to mean more to her than the man next to him, and the man next to him, and so on.

He had better get used to it, and stop daydreaming about how this could end differently. 

How he might mean more to her.

It was not going to happen.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for rape mention, abuse mention, torture mention

Carol stumbled as the man shoved her into what seemed to be the main hall of the keep. Ever since that first time, he had kept coming back with his torch and his cudgel, and had tried to get information on Daryl out of her. He had asked other questions as well from time to time, but Daryl seemed to be his main concern - his name, his age, where he came from. Things, confusingly, that would add nothing at all to his knowledge about how he might take him out of the equation.

She hadn’t answered any of his questions and had had to listen to hours of screaming from the man who had been held in her part of the dungeon until he’d been taken somewhere else, screaming in the distance, sobbing, begging. But from the questions she was being asked, she knew that they couldn’t possibly have Daryl here, or they would have been asking  _ him _ those questions. Thus, the man moaning in the darkness had to be someone else, one of Michonne’s soldiers who had been captured along with her, and this knowledge made it possible for her to endure.

So far, she hadn’t seen only two men here - one who had beaten her once or twice, with stringy blond hair and a face whose left half looked like the back of Daryl’s legs, and the man who had come to taunt and harass her, questioned her, pushed and held her down, promised her a well-appointed room up in the keep while giving her moth-eaten, filthy rags to replace her own clothes, and threatening to take those away, too.

And now, here she was, her hands bound behind her back, facing a roomful of people looking at her with everything ranging from curiosity to hatred. Up at the head of the room, next to the fireplace which held a blazing bonfire, there was a sturdy table with a ridiculously richly decorated wooden chair behind it that almost looked like a throne.

Sitting on it was a man with slicked-back, dark hair and with a dark beard sprinkled with gray covering his chin and jowls. He was lounging in his magnificent chair, his left leg dangling over the chair’s arm, and a scantily clad woman was sitting in his lap. A dim memory from several weeks back surfaced in Carol’s mind, but she couldn’t pin it down just now.

She could feel her heart racing, and her pulse throbbed in her tied wrists. Yet at the same time, a part of her stayed detached and calm, ordering her to survey her surroundings, count the men in fighting condition, count those who would be considered “baggage” in a fight - those who were going to need protection.

There were young boys and girls serving the leering men seated at the tables along the walls with food and drink - probably ale or wine rather than water, she guessed from everyone’s high spirits. There was a group of more women in scanty, evocative clothing off in one corner of the room, and she realized that the one sitting on the leader’s lap had probably been chosen from their number for this “honor” tonight.

Carol felt sick, and then a full-fledged memory flashed into her mind - a man, a guard, taunting women wearing barely a stitch of clothing who were locked up in what had seemed to be an animal cage - and Daryl insisting on freeing them. She hissed in a breath as she understood.

This was the group they had stolen the slaves from a few weeks back, and if they ever found out that it was her and the mage they already knew about who had taken so much of their “property” they would not rest until they had their revenge.

She  _ must not _ talk.

Her gaoler  gave her another shove and she stumbled forward another few steps, barely staying on her feet with her hands tied behind her back. When it seemed like she would finally lose her balance, his rough hand grabbed her wrists, crushing them together painfully, and a sharp pain flashed up both her arms as he wrenched them up. She gasped, but didn’t complain, and she heard him growling with approval.

The man on the throne-like chair shooed the woman out of his lap and sat up, focusing all of his attention on her, and she felt as if she had suddenly been placed under a magnifying lense. While the man who had come to interrogate her every day until now was certainly dangerous,  _ this _ man was in a league of his own, and she would do well to mind her every word while talking to him.

“So, who have we here?”

His voice actually sounded stunning, Carol thought, and he was making an effort to appear jovial and boisterous. Torture and intimidation, he seemed to be implying, are the things farthest from my mind. I am a nice guy, the only bad ones in here are my men, and I am fully in control of them. Trust me. I will do you no harm, and if you do what I want, nothing will happen to you.

Yet now that she had been pushed to the center of the hall and was standing just a few feet away from him, she could see his eyes - and his eyes told a completely different story. His eyes spoke of cruelty for the fun of it, of a cold detachment that knew only purpose and goals, of a relentless,  _ merciless _ pursuit of his desires - and to hell with everyone standing in his way.

A dangerous man, probably the single most dangerous person she had met, or was ever going to meet, in her life.

A man to be reckoned with.

Carol prepared herself for battle.

.-.

Glenn’s blood was roaring in his ears as he lay on his belly on the cold, stony ground next to Daryl, both of them staring into the gloom of dusk, with a freezing rain falling onto their backs. With daylight fading into dusk, some of Daryl’s insects - flies and plump bodied beetles this late in the year, rather than dragonflies and gnats - had returned to him with news of a keep ahead of them.

Daryl had taken the time to release all of them from his spell before tersely ordering Glenn to leave his pack and sword behind and only take his knives - and then dumping his own pack and his red robe. He had hidden their things in a dry hollow under a stone slab that had probably crashed down before humans had ever set foot in this area. The cracks in the slab had been weathered smooth, and were covered in lichen and moss. If they lived to come back here, their supplies would be waiting for them here, safe and dry.

And then Daryl had set out at a grueling pace, driving himself and his companion relentlessly until they had first caught sight of the gray, dilapidated keep in the distance, some of its merlons worn down, some gone, one of the four towers at its corners sagging slightly with disrepair. As soon as they were within sight of the keep, he had once again made sure that they were no longer wearing or carrying anything bright, and then they had crept forward until they had reached the last bend in the road leading up to the keep’s entrance.

This far into the foothills of the mountain range meandering through the south-east of the continent, there was too little water to sustain a moat, but there was a steep-walled ditch around the keep, with a drawbridge leading across it, and a portcullis protecting the gate. There was no sign of anyone carrying out repairs, and Glenn assumed that, if anyone was staying here, they weren’t planning on staying long, and they certainly weren’t the owners of the keep - for either of these would have been more than enough reason to at least repair the tower, which seemed to be on the verge of collapsing.

The two guards at the portcullis were hidden so well - probably unintentionally, since they were huddling around a glowing brazier holding a fire against the cold - that they almost escaped detection, yet Daryl pointed them out to Glenn a minute into their watch, and, once seen, they could not be unseen. They were trying hard, but they were still inexperienced enough at this whole guarding-a-castle business to give themselves away not in a big way but many small ones.

While the keep as a whole seemed deserted, there was a dim wedge of light falling across the courtyard some distance behind the portcullis, and there were thin columns of smoke rising somewhere toward the back of the yard. The light had to come either from a torch or from a window leading onto the courtyard, and surely the smoke was rising from at least one fire in a kitchen, or a room being used as one, and from a hall with everyone assembled in it. Surely the group holed up in there would not waste time and men on gathering firewood for heating individual bedrooms.

“Watch out for men up on the battlements,” Daryl murmured softly. “We need to know if they have anyone up there, watching. I’ll take a look at the towers and try to get inside.” With that, he slowly rose from the ground, still hunched over, and started moving away.

“What, wait, Daryl!” Eyes wide with panic, Glenn watched his companion disappearing into the falling night.

.-.

After casting his spell, Daryl leaned his wooden staff against one of the scraggly trees that had hidden him so far and placed his crossbow under a thicket of brambles, covering it with fallen leaves. Nobody would be looking for either the staff or the bow here, so they wouldn’t catch anyone’s eye, especially with night rapidly falling now.

He stepped out of the small copse of trees and made his way toward the keep, careful to be as quiet as humanly possible. When he reached the drawbridge, he regretted that he hadn’t had the time to wait for someone else to cross it before he would have to, but with the winds still high he hoped that any noise he couldn’t avoid here would be drowned out by its howling and moaning.

Daryl stepped onto the bridge, holding his breath.

Nothing.

Keeping his eyes on the two guards huddling inside the gate, capes drawn tightly about themselves, hoods up, he made his way across the bridge as quickly as possible, walking on his toes only so he would be well balanced in case one of the boards of the bridge should creak under his weight. He was grateful for the soft, rubbery soles of his boots that didn’t make any sound at all when he set them down.

Rushing through the gate and into the courtyard, he looked up and back at the portcullis, heart racing with tension, thigh pulsing with pain. If anything in here or out there in front of the keep were to make the two guards suspicious now, they would lower the portcullis, trapping him inside, and he had no idea what to do in that case once his spell elapsed.

But that worry was for later - or never, hopefully. For now, he needed to investigate and gather as much information as possible - and hope he would get out again to take it back to Michonne.

Moving out of the shadow of the arch he had hidden in immediately after entering the courtyard, he soundlessly made his way to one of the smaller doors leading into the keep. There was no guarantee that the main entrance wasn’t guarded from the inside, and he assumed that anyone posted there would not just brush off a heavy door opening on its own, with nobody entering.

After trying three of these service doors evenly spaced around the courtyard, he found one that wasn’t locked, and he waited for a loud gust of wind to pull it open just far enough so he was able to squeeze through it, grateful for leaving his crossbow behind.

He found himself in a dark hallway, facing a row of doors spaced several yards apart. He had no idea if they were leading to one large room or several smaller ones - there were no sounds in here at all, and he squinted into the darkness as he thought back to the wedge of light in the courtyard, and the section of the castle from which the smoke had been rising. Leaning against the sturdy door with his back, he closed his eyes as he worked out where he needed to go from here to reach that part of the keep before setting out.

In here, with the howling wind locked out, he was certain that his breathing was loud enough to give him away, but there was nothing he could do about it. Clenching his teeth against the pain in his leg, he rushed down the hallway, stopping at the intersection he came to so he could peer up and down the hallway he was about to enter and make sure it was empty. Closing his eyes again briefly, he recalled where he needed to go to reach the lighted area of the keep, and then moved out and turned right.

Several bends and hallways later, he came up on a double door which he suspected led to the main hall. He had been hearing laughter and swearing and people talking and singing, and all of it seemed to be coming from behind this door. Just a few minutes before, the sounds had swelled to an unprecedented level, followed by the sound of a heavy door closing, and now the people behind the door seemed to be quiet, listening to something.

Had someone been taken in there for some unknown purpose, or gone in willingly to give the people in that hall instructions or a report? Did they have some sort of entertainer they were listening to now?

Checking the dark hallway again to make sure that he was still alone and would remain so for some time, he stepped up to the door, knelt down in front of it, grunting with pain, and placed his ear against the large keyhole. The voice he’d heard mumbling became clearer.

“Merle here has been visiting you every day now for a while, but he tells me you’re not willing to share.” A pause, no answer, no reaction at all that he could hear. “You might not be aware of it, but we are really asking very little of you - just some information on that keep your friends are hiding in, and some more on that mage in the red robe that my men have told me about.” 

Daryl’s heart missed a beat. He had certainly found the right place.

The name mentioned had him clench his jaw for a moment, remembering a long-forgotten pain, but he reminded himself to concentrate on the purpose he’d come here for. This was his only opportunity to gather vital information on this group, he knew.

“If you give us the mage, if you tell us his name and some of his weaknesses, I might even let you go instead of making you my wife.” Daryl frowned. Wasn’t being made someone’s wife supposed to be a happy occasion, instead of something to threaten people with?

“I trust that Merle has made it clear what you have to expect if you do not cooperate, when we want so little. Not only will we hurt your surviving companion down in our dungeon. Once we have the mage, we will hurt him as well, and you will get to watch - before I hurt you, and he gets to watch.”

All the pieces fell into place in his mind, and he froze with horror, even forgetting for a moment that the voice had just mentioned is lost brother’s name yet again.

It had to be Carol in there. 

He wasn’t absolutely certain that there were no other female warriors in Michonne’s warband, but he was pretty sure that Carol was the only woman who had been taken hostage - and now she was being threatened with torture and rape because she wasn’t giving them the information they wanted so they could prepare their attack on Michonne’s keep.

His mind went blank, and his hands and feet went numb. His thigh and chest wounds were throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

Footsteps.

His hands scrabbled over the seam in the door, checked the location of the door’s handle and lock. Still numb with shock, he took two steps back and waited for the door to open and swing out so he could catch a glimpse of the inside of the hall, of how many men were in there, maybe of their weapons - of  _ Carol _ .

The door opened as he had expected it to and he made sure that he was well out of the way both of the door and the man stepping through it, even as he frantically looked past him to count, and check for weapons and defenses - 

_ \- and there was Carol, her hair unmistakable in the light of the torches set into the wall sconces around the room, dressed only in something that looked like a potato sack instead of the garments she wore under her armor, but apparently unhurt. Standing very upright, facing a man who had stepped up to her, his very posture threatening, with him more than a head taller than her, his shoulders nearly twice as wide, a huge club studded with nails dangling from his right hand. _

He  _ knew _ that he could not go in there right now and get her out and hope for both or even just one of them to live. He  _ knew _ that his spell was about to elapse, and that he needed to get out as quickly as possible, that he should probably  _ be  _ on his way out of here already, if he wanted to be certain that he could make it back outside with the spell still in effect. He  _ knew _ that what he had learned here tonight was important, no,  _ vital _ for their fight against this group and that he  _ had _ to get this information back to Michonne.

But his  _ heart _ knew something quite different.

His  _ heart _ knew that leaving Carol here, abandoning her to her fate, however short the time until his return might be, was probably the hardest thing he was ever going to be forced to do.

His  _ heart _ knew that, even though he knew he had no choice at all here, even if not one hair on her head was going to get harmed until he came back for her, he would never be able to forgive himself for leaving her here tonight, for however short a time.

His  _ heart _ knew that he would find no sleep again until she was free, and safe, even if he had to die to get her out of here.

The door swung closed and clanged shut, shutting off his view of her.

.-.

Glenn almost died of shock when Daryl seemed to materialize next to him out of nowhere.

“Could you … just …  _ not _ … do this?” he hissed at his companion, trying to catch his breath after suppressing what he knew would have been a wail of distress that would have called everyone in that keep to arms.

Then his eyes found Daryl’s face, and he fell silent as his heart gave one single painful thump in his chest.

_ Daryl was crying. _

“What happened?”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mention of torture and slavery

She had been alerted the moment one of the lookouts had seen them on the other side of the stream in the middle of the night, approaching the bridge, and now she was waiting in the courtyard with Abraham, Hershel, his daughter Maggie, and Carl, as Daryl and Glenn were making their way across the drawbridge and entered the bailey.

Maggie, in a surprisingly open display of her feelings, ran toward them and hugged Glenn as if he had been gone for weeks instead of two days. The others remained rooted to the spot, their eyes going to Daryl’s face as he entered the area lit by the torches on the wall and at the gate and then mindlessly continued toward them, his limp worse than when he had left, but not too bad overall, considering he’d been out there in the cold and rain for two days barely a week after getting injured.

His eyes looked empty, devoid of life, with dark circles under them that spoke of sleepless nights and sorrow untold. His shoulders slumped, he was dragging his feet, and once he had reached the group waiting for him, he listlessly came to a halt and just stood there, looking at the ground at his feet.

Raising a tentative hand but not touching him, Hershel took one step toward him, and Daryl flinched back.

“What happened to her?” Hershel’s voice was a whisper. He didn’t want his words to hurt the broken man in front of him even more.

Daryl looked up briefly before turning his head to the side again.

“One of ‘em’s dead.”

At first, nobody knew what to make of this statement. The tone of voice in which it was being delivered made Hershel’s chest hurt. At the time he had left, Daryl had been driven by the urgent need to save someone he clearly loved. He had been bursting with energy, had seemed ready to take on an entire band of thugs and bandits on his own if necessary, and Hershel had hardly been able to keep him from going out before he’d been in the shape to do so. Now, only an empty shell seemed to remain that happened to look like the man who had left not quite three days ago. Something seemed to have sucked the life out of him. His soul had left his eyes.

Then Abraham spoke up, his voice soft.

“One of our men?”

Daryl nodded wordlessly. From the way he moved, his head seemed to weigh at least as much as the center stone of the arch framing the keep’s main entrance. He kept looking down as he mumbled something unintelligible.

“I’m sorry, son, I didn’t catch that.”

Sucking in a lungful of air against the steel bands tightening around his chest, Daryl raised his head to look at Abraham, his eyes wounded.

“‘m sorry.”

Abraham shook his head. “If it is who I think it is, he was badly hurt already by the time they got him. There’s nothin’ at all you coulda done there, even if you’d gone sooner, or gotten him out. Still sucks, but this ain’t your fault, son.”

Stepping up to the mage, he tried to pat him on the shoulder, but Daryl took a step backward, almost tripping over his own feet in the process. There was an almost feral look in his eyes as he raised his head, making sure that nobody was close enough any longer to touch him. He was panting heavily, with a rasping sound in his throat and lungs.

“Easy, son, easy.”

This time it was Hershel who stepped up to him, his hands raised so Daryl could see them at all times, and be sure that Hershel was not going to touch him out of nowhere. Still, he kept cringing back from the older man, retreating back toward where Glenn and Maggie were still embracing each other. For the first time since she had run toward him, Glenn looked up and noticed Daryl’s plight.

“Would you -” he mumbled, gently grasping her arms to push them down from around his shoulders and back. Sidestepping her, Glenn moved toward Daryl, heart aching, as Maggie looked on, curious. She had heard about the mage and the lady knight who had joined the warband, but had never seen either of them until Glenn and Daryl had set out on their rescue mission two days before - almost three now. During those two days, she realized, something harrowing had to have happened to turn the mage into this feral creature that would not allow anyone near him, let alone touch him.

They all watched, spellbound, as Glenn slowly approached Daryl, keeping up a steady stream of soothing words until he finally reached him, visibly calming the mage down, but once he stood next to him, he still wouldn’t touch Daryl. Instead, he positioned himself where Daryl could see him without turning his head again to face forward or raise his eyes - he just allowed him to see his feet right there in front of his own.

“You need to get some rest until we move out. Some hot food, water, a fresh bandage on your leg. Close your eyes for a few minutes, even if you can’t sleep. This is the second night in a row that we’re not sleeping.” No reaction. Keeping his voice soft and low, Glenn continued. “You’re no good to her if you get there completely exhausted, and if this were about her or me, you’d be the one saying this.”

Glenn’s voice was still quiet and calm. He was giving Daryl the space he clearly needed to feel safe and in control. Glenn had no idea what had happened to make the mage so averse to touch and comfort in situations like this, but he was prepared to roll with it and do whatever it was Daryl needed right now to be able to function and accept help.

“With the news we’re bringing back, that two of our people are back there, getting interrogated, with one of them used to blackmail the other, I’m sure we’re going out today, and we will need you.”

The group that had been waiting for them looked alarmed at this. The situation their captured people were in was just as dire as they had feared, it seemed, and they urgently needed to react, go out there, and save them.

Daryl was swaying on his feet now, and both he and Glenn were soaking wet from the cold rain that had caught them outside the enemy keep. They hadn’t slept in more than a day. Yet there could also be no doubt at all that Daryl would forcibly insist on going out with the warband as soon as they were setting out, so Hershel would need to get him back into some semblance of fighting shape, or at least able to travel.

“Hershel will take care of your leg so it won’t hold you back, and we’ll both rest and eat.” Glenn gestured toward Hershel who refrained from approaching Daryl again for the time being. “We will make sure that you get what you need to feel well enough to help us get her back.”

The mage looked up now, slowly, moving as if in a dream. His nostrils were flaring.

“One of the men died. When I was inside the keep they are hiding in, the leader was threatening Carol so she’d give up details on our armaments, numbers, training, but while I was there, she didn’t answer.” He drew a shuddering breath, composing himself. “He said that if she refused to cooperate, he’d harm the other surviving soldier and make her watch.”

Abraham swore under his breath. Michonne looked furious. Clearly, both of them were ready to do what it took to get the surviving hostage out of there, along with Carol.

Daryl braced himself. He knew there was no way around admitting that he had brought this upon them by deciding, several weeks back, to free the slaves this group had been keeping, and he prepared himself for being thrown out the moment he closed his mouth again.

“I did this to us.”

Everyone in the courtyard - Michonne, Abraham, Hershel, Glenn, the dark-haired girl - stared at him as if he had just grown a second head. Holding down his fear, he said it again.

“I did this. A few weeks ago, I freed some women from a camp at night who were being kept in a cage. We took them to safety, and we moved on. This is that group. I guess they want revenge for me ‘stealing’ from them. They know about me, probably from the battle a few days ago, and I think they know it was me who took their slaves - I was wearing my robes both times, and they’re pretty conspicuous, even in the dark.”

At the mention of slaves, Michonne had visibly stiffened. Slavery had been outlawed for years, but there were still people who kept mainly black and brown people from the East and South as slaves, and some enjoyed girls and women from the Southern Islands as dancers because they were considered “exotic” and had lithe bodies. As a dark skinned black woman, she had slaves in her ancestry, and there was no way she would stand for this.

“You’re certain the women are safe and weren’t taken again?”

He nodded. Putting his weight on his good leg, he explained how he had found them a place to stay in a nearby town, and alerted the mayor to the danger lurking in the woods so he would provide guards for them. Then, very softly, he added, “Shoulda killed ‘em all that night, instead o’ jus’ leavin’.”

Michonne’s eyes went to his staff, the most visible symbol of his profession apart from his robes, and a tool that he was able to use in combat for casting spells. To her credit, there was no fear in her eyes - she trusted this man. He might be a loner, he might be acting deliberately stand-offish and forbidding to keep people away, but at the end of the day, from the way she’d seen him behave, she trusted Daryl to do the right thing, and what he had just told them only proved it - he had accepted blame for Michonne’s warband ever coming into contact with this group, yet his own reason for crossing them was certainly a noble one that she could get behind as well.

With a gesture at Hershel, she shook her head. “You did the right thing, about everything. You freed the slaves but gave the slavers a chance to redeem themselves by sparing their lives. They chose not to take it, and now they will pay for it. I will need your information on the location of the keep you mentioned, and on its layout. On how many of them there are, how well equipped they are - you know the drill. Hershel will take care of your injury to get you back into shape, and the warband will set out in the morning.”

Hershel wanted to protest, but she cut him off before he could start. “He’s the only one who has been inside this keep. I would guess it’s the one in the foothills to the north, which has been abandoned for at least twenty years. We need him there, and we need you to get him there.” She turned to Abraham. “We will need your maps. Go get them, and then come to my room.”

This time, Hershel spoke up. “But I cannot treat a patient in your room!”

“And you won’t.” Michonne’s voice was adamant. “You treat him in the infirmary, and then bring him to me so he can assist with the planning.”

Now Glenn had to say something. “But he needs to rest! We didn’t sleep since the night before last, and we were on our feet all of last night to get back! And he needs to relearn the spells he’s used!”

Michonne gave him a stern look. “We need both you and him for this. Once you’ve given us all the information you can, you will both get to sleep before we set out - but we must not lose too much time or nobody will be alive for us to rescue. I’m sure you see my point.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for gore, blood, abuse

The girl looked terrified - little wonder, Merle thought, with the body of her brother lying next to her in a spreading pool of blood. Negan was standing close enough to her for their faces to touch, for his breath to ghost over her skin. Merle felt extremely uncomfortable as he looked at this display of power, designed solely to make the girl crumple under the weight of all those eyes on her naked body, of her brother lying beside her with a blood stain spreading on his chest, of her family’s murderer touching her skin and whispering that he wanted to make her his wife.

Suddenly, Merle’s mind went back to the woman down in the dungeon, the one from whom he had been ordered to get information, and he felt bile rising in his throat. She was, he guessed, roughly as old as his mother had been when she had died, along with his father and baby brother. And here he was, the son of a mother, terrifying a woman in order to get her to talk.

Right now, she was again being kept in a dark cell, without food or water, even without straw this time, and he would do well to have already left the main hall again and try to obtain some new bit of information from her by the time Negan was done with the waif shying back from him right now.

His eyes found Dwight, who was sitting at one of the tables lining the walls, looking on with a bleak expression on his half-burned face - more retaliation for his failure to capture the mage who had stolen their slaves - and empty eyes, no doubt remembering his wife whom Negan had killed a little over three weeks before. Dwight hadn’t been the same ever since, and Merle was not surprised. Unlike Merle, who had fortunately been facing the other direction, Dwight had been forced to watch before having his face burned two days later, and it had broken him.

Merle reminded himself to look toward the center of the room again. It wouldn’t do at all to be caught by Negan as he was looking away. Negan preferred his men to watch closely while he was humiliating prisoners, especially when those prisoners were beautiful young girls that he was considering for his personal enjoyment. However, just as Merle was looking toward the girl again, Negan leaned in even closer to inhale her scent, and Merle had to close his eyes. He quickly raised his ale to cover the expression on his face and hide the fact that he wasn’t really looking, that he wasn’t enjoying what was going on in front of him.

More than anything else, the feeling of dread pooling in his guts of being found to be disgusted with his leader’s behavior told him - not for the first time - that something was very wrong here, and that he might have made a mistake in joining these people, or at least in staying this long.

.-.

Sniffing the goblet that Hershel had handed him, Daryl shook his head.

“I ain’t drinkin’ this. My own’s better.”

Sighing at his patient being stubborn yet again, Hershel put the goblet down on the small table next to Daryl’s bed.

“But you need to take something or you won’t be able to sleep.”

“Thought I was to go to her room for planning the attack anyway,” Daryl pointed out. “So, let’s go.”

“I won’t have you sitting in a cold room while you’re still in pain.”

“There’s something I gotta do, and I can’t take anything before then. Let’s go.”

Daryl swung his legs out of his bed and got up. Grabbing his red robe, he ignored Hershel rolling his eyes, so of course Hershel had to mutter discontentedly to make his displeasure with him known. Daryl turned to face him, both arms out to the sides and halfway into his sleeves; with the bright red robe hanging off him, he looked like a fancy scarecrow.

“What was that?”

“You can tell them about the number of people in that keep without being in pain. You don’t have to prove you’re the baddest guy out there.”

“I cannot be drugged for what I’m planning to do,” Daryl said earnestly. “Once I’m back up here, you can fill me with painkillers and sleeping potions to your heart’s content, but until then, I have to stay alert and awake.”

He slipped on his boots and then picked up the belt for his robe, with its dangling weight of pouches. Cinching his robe, he knotted his belt over his right hip, grabbed his staff, and set out for the door. “Let’s do this.”

Out of consideration for her two frozen spies, Michonne had asked one of her maids to light a fire in the fireplace in her room despite the late - or early - hour, and by the time Daryl knocked on the door and entered the room, it was blazing hot. Coming in from the cold hallway, he shivered with pleasure. Glenn, he saw, was already here, wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a chair close to the fire, looking tired and worn. He was still holding a bowl of stew in one hand and the spoon in the other. Daryl walked over and sat down next to him, declining with a grateful nod when Glenn offered him the bowl of stew.

Michonne and Andrea were sitting next to each other, with Andrea’s hand lightly resting on Michonne’s arm. Clearly, she was giving emotional support to her as well as providing advice, and for a heartbeat, Daryl fiercely wished for Carol to be there, next to him.

“Okay, let’s get started right away so you two can get some rest before we head out.” Michonne unrolled a map on her table and weighed its edges down with the candle, a knife, and an inkwell. After quickly checking the coastline and the mountain range stretching across half of it, Daryl stated, “This covers about two days’ march in any direction, right?”

The look in Michonne’s eyes told him she was impressed. “You saw the scale?”

“I make maps. Half of those I left behind for you to copy, I did myself.”

He leaned forward to inspect the map and his index finger pecked the parchment toward its upper right edge. “It’s this ruin here,” he explained. “Parts of it are pretty dilapidated - a sagging watchtower on the forward left corner, collapsed merlons on the battlements, things like that. The drawbridge has weak spots, but I didn’t see any major damage when I crossed it, it should be safe.”

Michonne looked up from the notes she was taking. “Wait - you actually went  _ inside _ the keep?”

“That is what I said, didn’t I? I listened in on them, I watched him threatening Carol in some large hall.”

“How … How did you … Don’t they have any guards posted?”

“They do. I have ways. I’m a mage. It won’t work for any sizeable group, but when we go in, I can do this for four, maybe five people.”

Michonne looked at him with new respect. “What will you need?”

“It’s a powder, and a spell I’ll have to relearn, and I’ve got enough of the powder left,” Daryl brushed her question off, eager to move on. “There’s more. I can show you the layout.”

Reaching out for her stack of writing parchment, she took a new sheet and handed it over along with a quill, but he shook his head.

“You keep that, or call your scribe so he can make a drawing. I will  _ show _ you the keep.” He reached down to his belt and brought up one of his pouches. “I will need a candle.”

Michonne nodded at her maid who took one of the fresh candles from the table to the fireplace to light it. When the girl returned with the burning candle, Daryl looked up at her - to see the fear and hate in her eyes.

Fear of what he was. Of what he could do.

For just a moment, his heart ached as he remembered that men and women like him had been burned at the stake not one hundred years ago. Tortured. Beaten to death. Quartered.

For what they were. For what they could do.

From the corner of his eye he saw Andrea and Michonne exchanging a glance, and Andrea giving a brief nod. Looking over at them, he saw Michonne’s knowing, reassuring look - she, too, as well as Andrea, had seen the girl’s eyes, and she, too, remembered, and was reassuring him that they would protect him.

“I won’t need you anymore tonight, Enid, you may go to bed again. I’m sorry for keeping you up so long.” She nodded, and the girl fled after one last hateful look at Daryl.

With a sigh, he rose and pulled the candle closer, then opened his pouch. Glancing at Michonne and Andrea, he said, “I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to show it. Make sure your ink is open and your quill dipped. Wanna call a scribe?”

With a slight smile, Michonne herself pulled her jar of ink closer, dipped her quill in it, and poised it over the fresh sheet of parchment. “Let’s keep this inside this room for now. I’ll do the drawing. Ready when you are.”

Daryl reached into his pouch with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. When he brought them out again, he didn’t seem to be holding anything, but then he held his hand in front of the candle and softly blew over his fingertips - and the dancing flame darkened as smoke and soot started spiraling upward from the wick, arranging themselves into square walls, with towers on the four corners of the keep hinted at.

The sound of Daryl’s breathing ceased as he dipped his fingers into the pouch once more, the magic filling him, and repeated the process. This time, a building materialized at the center of the four walls he had conjured up from smoke the first time around. Glenn almost stopped breathing when he noticed the level of detail at which Daryl was recreating the keep he had infiltrated with the writhing smoke and soot from a candle.

By repeating the dipping and blowing several times, Daryl built the keep from smoke, all of it that he had seen from the inside. He built castle walls, with doors and windows, the hallway running the length of the bailey, the doors leading away from it. The bends and hallways leading to the hall in which the robbers’ leader held court.

By the time he had taken them to the room in which Carol had been interrogated - surely not the only room where they had done that, but the only one he had seen - the walls of smoke around the keep were beginning to disintegrate. When he noticed this, he quickly took one final pinch of his powder and conjured up soot and smoke one last time to add the moat and drawbridge - and a copse of trees just outside the wall, to the southeast of the drawbridge.

“This is where I cast my spell. It’s a thicket that we can easily reach from a base camp behind this range of hills here -” His index finger, coated in a fine gray powder resembling ash, stabbed the map and Michonne quickly marked the spot with a blue “X” - “and it’s close enough so we won’t lose too much time once I’ve cast it - I got in and out from this point while it was still effective.” His eyes met Michonne’s, the look on his face intense. “You need to choose carefully who we take in there. I won’t be able to cast it again once we’re inside. I would have to relearn it first, and I won’t have the time to do that - and even if I did, I can only use each spell once per day, unless I cast a series version, and there is no series version of this one because you can use it on several people at once.”

Michonne had an idea, but she had to ask nevertheless. “What does it do?”

Glenn, even knowing what would come, could feel his heart skipping a beat at Daryl’s answer.

“It will make you invisible.”


	27. Chapter 27

By mid-morning, all preparations had been completed - every member of the warband had been briefed on the layout of the keep they were attacking, all weapons were in perfect condition, the horses had been taken care of and were as eager to move out as their riders. Michonne’s warband couldn’t wait to rescue two of their own - and avenge the one who had died in captivity.

Looking down into the courtyard from his room, Daryl had seen them assembling, hooves scratching on the cobblestones, weapons rattling, the leather gear of the horses creaking in the cold, the breath of horses and riders rising in expanding white plumes. At least, he thought, the sky was mostly clear again and it was no longer raining. In exchange, the temperature had continued dropping all through the night and the early morning. Leaning over his backpack, he pulled out his leather jacket and put it on before slipping into his robe, cinching it with his belt, checking his pouches, and finally grabbing his staff and backpack.

Leaving his room, he stepped up to the door opposite his own and knocked on it. When it opened, he found himself looking at the boy, Carl, who seemed downright distressed.

“You’re going out as well?”

This question took Daryl completely by surprise.

“Of course I am. I’m the only one of us who’s been in there. But it will be okay - I will get some people in there with me when we get there, and they’ll have my back.” In a softer voice, he finished, “I have to go. Carol is counting on me.”

“But … Glenn is also going, and Michonne. And Carol’s gone already, and if you all die, what will -” His voice broke, and a tear spilled out of his right eye and onto his cheek - a face looking at least as miserable as his own as a child, Daryl thought, at a time when he didn’t really have the leisure to deal with this as thoroughly as he would have wanted to - as thoroughly as Carl needed him to.

“Of course you’re afraid,” he began, his rough voice unusually soft, a deep pain just under the surface that he normally did his best to hide under a gruff tone. “I’d be afraid, too, if I had to stay behind. But we’re not going out there to die - we’re going out to win, and we will be back.” He gently placed his left index finger under Carl’s chin, lifting the boy’s head so he could look at his fragile face, into his fearful eyes - and to let Carl see the certainty in his own.

“We will win, and we will be back, all of us. And even if every last one of us were to die today, which we are not, the people here would still take care of you. Michonne has seen to that. This place is your new home, if you want it to be.” His hand went from Carl’s chin to his shoulder and tugged on it ever so slightly, sending out an invitation without forcing the teenager to accept it - but Carl came willingly. He allowed Daryl to embrace him, feeling the lean, muscular body under the soft red robe, and the heat radiating from him - and his slow, steady, unafraid heartbeat. He hugged him back, holding on to him as if for dear life, willing him to be safe in the coming confrontation.

“I’ll be seeing you tomorrow. Glenn will. Michonne will. We all will.”

Daryl let go of Carl and stepped back from him, and Carl gave him a nod, his lip still trembling but the look in his eyes firm now. “Until then.”

The mage nodded at the boy and then turned away to head for the stairway.

As he was descending, he heard footsteps coming up from below, and suddenly he found himself looking at Michonne’s maid who had stared at him with such hate the night before. His blood ran cold when he saw the silver dagger in her hand, pointing at him. He stopped in his tracks and slowly raised his free hand.

“Is there any way I can convince you that I am not a danger to you or anyone else here?”

Instead of answering, she lunged forward, the knife lashing out, and he uttered the spell in reflex, freezing the hand holding it in mid motion. Her fingers opened and the dagger fell. His own right hand went cold and his staff clattered to the ground next to the woman’s dagger as he lost sensation in it.  _ Not good _ .

“We’ve suffered enough at the hands of you and your ilk,” she hissed, voice dripping with hatred. Its sound sent a shiver down his spine. “You are a danger to  _ everyone  _ around you, simply because of what you  _ are _ , and you need to go.”

She bent down and her right hand, still without sensation as he could tell from his own numb hand, settled on her dagger, closing around it - but then his boot came down, crushing her fingers against the stone of the stairs, immobilizing her.

“Never,” he snarled at her, “have I harmed anyone who hadn't harmed some innocent soul first - or me. Do not make me start today.”

“As if the purity of your soul were of any concern to you.” She spat the sentence at him like a mouthful of venom, and he flinched back from the sound of her voice. “Mere mortals don’t even  _ count  _ as human in your book, and don’t you dare pretend it’s any different, that  _ you’re _ any different.”

“ _ I don’t have time for this _ ,” he hissed. Mumbling a levitation spell and extending his left hand, he called his staff into his hand and jabbed her left shoulder with its tip, right into the nest of nerves hidden there. From the look on her face, his aim had been excellent. Her eyes continued spewing hatred at him, but now, both her hands were out of commission - the right one from his spell and his boot stepping on it, the left from the numbing jab to her shoulder.

Pinning his staff to his chest with his paralyzed right forearm, hoping that he hadn’t cast that spell with maximum effect in reflex so he would have the use of his hand back soon, he grabbed her by the right shoulder with his good hand and started dragging her down the stairs with him, completely ignoring her snarling and hissing as she tried to wrench her shoulder out of his iron grip.

When they arrived on the ground floor, he stopped in the hallway and turned to face her. “Why did you hate me right from the start? I’d never even met you before last night, even while we were here.”

“A Black Robe killed my family,” she snarled at him. “And you’re a Red, so you’re just one step up from her. Humans without magical powers are worth less than animals to all of you.” She spat out, and a wad of spittle landed on his chest.

Deflated, he looked first at the gob of mucus running down his chest, and then at her, a torn look on his face.

“I won’t go Black, ever. When I was seven, a Red Robe pulled me from my burning house in which my parents had just died, and took me to the Wizards’ Tower two days’ journey from my home - that was where the nearest doctor was. While we were on the road, he took care of my injuries, he saw to it that I received treatment at the Tower when we arrived, and had me accepted as a student once I had healed. When I was finished, they wanted to give me White, but I chose to wear Red as a tribute to him. And also -” 

He reached out for the door and pushed it open with his numb right hand, careful not to allow it to bend the wrong way, his staff under his arm - “Black Robes are not inherently evil. Their tasks are different from mine, they need different spells, which are aligned with the dark moon more than the red or white one - and so their robes are black, but they aren’t evil.” Looking over his shoulder, with the sun shining in on them and highlighting her red hair, he let his good hand fall from her shoulder as he added: “Only individuals can be evil. I’m sorry for what that Black Robe did to you, and I realize it will be hard after your previous experience - but try not to generalize.”

When he stepped out through the open door, letting go of her, she stood rooted to the spot for a few moments longer, stunned. She had attacked a valued, all but omnipotent member of her liege lady’s warband with a weapon, with intent to kill, and he’d had her in his power - yet he was letting her go without punishment. He might not even mention this incident to anyone. Pushing the door open just far enough that she could peer out into the courtyard, she watched him limp to his waiting horse, shake his right hand while telling one of the stable boys a made-up story about stumbling on the stairs, accept his crossbow to put it on his back, and accept help for mounting, with his right hand still numb.

And then the warband rode off - and she was still free to marvel at his open-mindedness and generosity of spirit, when he could easily have had her executed - or just killed her on the spot himself with her own dagger after numbing her hand.

Maybe not all mages were evil.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for torture mention

They had been approaching on foot for the past hour after hiding their horses, and the keep now seemed to be only a stone’s throw away. While Daryl was very certain that he had not been noticed entering or leaving the keep and they were going to catch the gang unawares and unprepared, they still didn’t want to risk running into something as game-changing - and as easily avoided - as a circle of guards added toward the outside, or even just moved out by several yards.

Along the way, they had decided on the group to infiltrate the keep, and Daryl had been keeping his powder on hand for some time now, expecting Michonne to give the order to break away from the main group at any moment now. Also, he had left his robe behind with his horse, albeit reluctantly. He was still identifyable by the crossbow over his back, but at least he was no longer standing out like a sore thumb in a landscape already bleak and gray with approaching winter.

Abraham signaled his men and they started dividing into smaller groups that fanned out to search the area. They were going to wait for dusk, and for the enemy to change guards at the gate and on the towers. Daryl, Michonne, Abraham, and one of Abraham’s seconds in command were going to enter the keep under the cover of Daryl’s spell.

Glenn, who wasn’t trained in either warfare in general or hand to hand combat, was going to be under the spell’s influence as well, but was going to stay outside and distract the guards for when the group entered – and maybe also for when they came back out, just in case the keep’s new owners hadn’t been overwhelmed yet by that time. They had no idea what the two hostages had endured and in what condition they were going to find them, and if they both needed major support to get out, the guards had to be paying attention to something other than random, inexplicable sounds of scuffing boots or pebbles being kicked away when there was no one to be seen.

.-.

This new cell without even a straw heap to rest on had something else in exchange – a window set high into the wall, probably just above ground level and no wider than her hand, and impossible to reach, but it did provide her with fresh air and a view of the sky when she moved far enough away from it. This made it possible for her to keep track of the sun moving across the sky for the first time since she had been thrown into this hellhole. It also gave her an opportunity to prepare for what was going to happen once it was fully dark outside.

Negan had given her until tonight to make up her mind on whether or not she was going to give him the information he wanted. Should she decide to refuse, he was going to take her to the dungeon’s torture chamber so she could witness the captured soldier getting tortured to make her speak.

This man had known her only for a few weeks, and she didn’t even know his name. She had been unconscious while they had both been brought here, and didn’t even know who had been captured with her. To him, she was a stranger, someone who had arrived with a juggler and a mage and made room for herself in a space that had been his. Now she was here with him, and had to assume and hope that he would understand that there was no way she could give Negan the information he wanted, even if he was going to be the one to bleed for her silence. She hoped that it was understood, from her point of view, that she would have expected him to remain silent as well if their roles had been reversed.

She looked up at the sliver of a window once more, and her heart grew heavy as she watched the sky turning dark.

.-.

Daryl waited until each of them had finished hiding what they were not going to take along – Abraham’s cudgel, Michonne and Glenn’s short swords, the bow and arrow of Rosita, Abraham’s second in command, his own staff and crossbow. They were all going to take in what would be the most useful to them – Abraham his sword, Michonne a katana that she carried on her back, Glenn his knives, Rosita a sword – and he was going to be armed with his daggers and his spells. There were only very few spells that he needed his staff for, and none of them were vital to this mission.

Once they had all raked some fallen leaves over their discarded weapons, they gathered around Daryl in a circle and he sprinkled each of them with a pinch of a fine white powder from one of his pouches.

“You need to stand close enough to me to touch. It’s okay to actually reach out and touch me for this, to make sure the spell is transferred to each of you as I’m casting it.” He looked at each of them in turn. “While I am casting, you mustn’t speak, and obviously, you must not move away. Also, we will no longer see each other once I am done, so if any of you is still unsure of what you need to do once we set out, now is the time to speak up. We won’t notice what the others are doing once I’m done with this, so if one of us wanders off in the wrong direction, the others will never know.”

Abraham and Michonne looked around the circle one last time, and everyone nodded back at them and at Daryl. With a look over her shoulder at the distance they would have to cross to reach the drawbridge, Michonne suggested, “Maybe we should touch while we’re going in, to make sure we’re not losing anyone?”

Abraham nodded. “Makes sense. We don’t want to be split up, and we can’t risk talking loud enough to stay close to each other. Once the spell takes effect, we keep touching the shoulder, arm, or back of the person in front of us when we set out.”

Daryl felt his chest constricting when he saw them all slowly moving in and reaching out to touch him, and quickly closed his eyes to control his distress over being so closely surrounded by people he had barely come to know. Who said they would not abandon him and Carol once they had their man? Who said they wouldn’t be happy to leave him and Carol behind as bait so they could get away?

But no, he instantly reprimanded himself, remembering Michonne taking them in without hesitation, Abraham helping him after the ambush in the foothills, and Hershel being there for him and Glenn even in the middle of the night to make sure they would be okay after their scouting mission. Michonne would not do that to them. She would never ask, let alone order her men to betray Carol and him, and Glenn was far too kind a soul to ever even consider going along with any such order. 

Daryl concentrated on his breathing, and slowly, his panic began to recede. They would be okay. He would get Carol and the surviving soldier who had been captured with her - Morgan or Tobin, he remembered suddenly -  out of this, and they would all get away.

With his eyes still closed, he spread his hands in the air in front of him, palms facing up, his position resembling that of someone waiting for a large, heavy object to be placed into their arms. Taking a deep breath, he started casting his spell, speaking slowly and carefully.

A soft glow began to cover his hands and then spread out to enclose him and the men and women around him in a cloud of dim light – and when it winked out, he seemed to be standing in the small copse of trees on his own, with everyone else gone.

“It works.” Michonne’s voice, still calm and in control after she had just watched four people around her disappear into thin air - and seemingly disappearing herself. “You know what to do, and you know we don’t have much time. Don’t waste it. Let’s go.”

Feeling the fingertips of a hand on his right shoulder, Daryl headed for the keep, walking at a steady pace to make sure that the others could keep up with him without either running into or losing each other. Once they reached the drawbridge, careful to avoid the tall grasses that would give away their presence by rustling and moving against the wind, Glenn whispered, “I’ll stay here. Be careful, and good luck!”

Finding him at the end of their line with one outstretched hand, Daryl awkwardly patted Glenn’s upper arm instead of his back before preceding the others across the bridge over the empty moat. Just like the previous night, the guards were huddled inside the gate, out of the wind and close to the fire basket that had been put up for them again. As planned, Daryl now reached back, feeling for Abraham’s shoulder, and then straightened his arm. He could feel Abraham doing the same with Michonne. By literally keeping each other at arm’s length, they managed to avoid running into each other as they filed through the narrow open space left inside the arch between the guards and the wall, not daring to breathe.

The guards were rubbing their hands over the fire basket, talking about some girl, and about the food during lunch - and about how they were going to miss the woman giving up her information to Negan any moment now since night had fallen and her ultimatum had run out and they were stuck out here, keeping watch.

.-.

Merle was standing outside in the bailey, looking up at the sagging watch tower toward the front of the keep, when he heard a sound. It was just a boot scraping against stone, nothing much, and it could have been the guards in the bridge house protecting the portcullis, and there needn’t be anything to it – but he still scanned the courtyard quickly before returning into the keep to alert the guards posted just inside the main entrance, as well as Negan himself, that he had been apprehensive anyway and had now heard strange sounds in the bailey, and that they might do well to be prepared.

.-.

Rolling his eyes, Daryl stopped when he saw the man next to the keep’s main entrance looking around the courtyard like a hawk. He had hoped that the sound of the pebble that one of them had scuffed hadn’t drawn any attention, but they weren’t getting any slack here. He knew that there was no way the man would be able to see them in the dimly lit courtyard, however hard he might be looking, but he had no idea what the fitful moonlight making its way through the racing clouds might look like after passing “through” them as they were crossing the courtyard, so he decided to play it safe and stay in the shadows until the man had left.

Once the keep’s door had closed behind the man, he moved on, approaching the same door through which he had entered the keep the night before. He waited for the guards to start talking in whispers before he tried it, and was relieved to find it unlocked again. After looking back at the guards, making sure their backs were turned, he opened the door just far enough to slip through, hoping that nobody was passing through the hallway inside right now, and pressed his back against the wall the moment he was in there after quickly looking around himself to make sure that he was alone.

Moving to the side, he made room for Michonne who was next to enter, then Rosita, who held the door for Abraham. She double-checked the door after closing it so it wouldn’t creak or bang in the wind that kept falling into the keep. The narrow rectangles of light on the opposite wall turned dim, then dark as the clouds hid the moon outside, plunging the hallway into darkness, and Daryl whispered, “Go.”

Still staying in loose contact by touching each other occasionally, they followed the path through the keep that Daryl had taken the previous night. He assumed that the group’s leader would want to humiliate Carol in public once again and would have her brought to the main hall for questioning. Even if he didn’t, this was the place they needed to go first – they had a job to do there.

Rushing up to the double doors before which he’d crouched the night before, he exhaled, then looked back into the seemingly empty hallway over his shoulder. “Ready?” After receiving three whispered answers, he gently wrapped his hands around the bulky door handle, and was about to ease it down when he heard a voice booming from inside the room.

“Well, get her up here. It’s time. I want her answer now.”

Footsteps.

Remembering which way the door opened, Daryl reached behind him and pushed the others back against the wall with him as he made room for whoever was coming out. “They’re getting Carol from the dungeon. I’ll follow whoever’s going down for her, you go in there and start taking names. Remember, the guy with the club is their leader, he’s probably sitting in this ridiculous carved chair I saw last night. He  _ has  _ to go, and if possible he has to go first.” He could feel Rosita nodding next to him as her hand tightened around her sword’s grip. “Once I’ve got Carol and the other hostage, I’ll join you up here again.”

The door was pushed open and banged into the wall on the other side, and Daryl was relieved that they hadn’t relied on the person coming out to make a soft exit but lined up on the opposite wall. He brushed by the others, ensuring that they all knew that he was gone, and followed the man - the guy from the courtyard who had heard their pebble, he saw - down the hallway. 

At his back, he heard the door closing and hoped that the other three had all gotten in - their plan relied heavily on the element of surprise, with people dropping dead literally out of thin air, and it wouldn’t do to have the door open and close for nothing, alerting the robbers to the fact that something fishy was going on here. They mustn’t give themselves away like that.

He followed the man down the hallway and down a winding staircase that clearly was located in one of the small towers on a corner of the keep. He hoped that this one was in better repair than the corresponding tower in the wall, and that there were not too many guards posted in the tower and the dungeons.

When they reached solid ground, with the staircase ending on the level below the main hall, the man grabbed one of the burning torches on the wall and pulled it out of its sconce to take along. Daryl’s heart clenched under the weight of his guilt.  _ She has been kept in darkness all this time _ .

The man passed by a small dirty table littered with mouse droppings and grabbed a wooden plate waiting on it - a chunk of moldy bread, Daryl saw, and a wooden goblet, probably with sour wine or spoiled water. Keeping track of the turns they took, he followed the man to a cell where he banged on the bars, called out, and then shoved the food under the bars separating the cell from the hallway.

Daryl saw a pitiful figure stirring among the dirty straw stacked in a far corner, lifting a hand to protect his eyes against the glare of the flickering torch as he looked toward the noise. He wished there was a way to signal to the man so he could let him know that help was on its way, that he was going to get him out of this cell as soon as he had found and freed Carol, that he would only have to be in there for a few more minutes before he was going to come for him. But he could only watch in horrified sympathy as the man - it was Morgan, he saw - scurried from the heap of moldy straw to the front of his cell to grab the plate and cup and retreat again to have his chunk of moldy bread in peace.

Heart heavy, he followed as his unwitting guide set out once more, again keeping track of the turns they took and the ones they passed, until they reached another row of cells, also in a hallway that was dark but for the torch the man in front of him was carrying. Daryl felt his stomach clenching and his heart speeding up in apprehension as he softly set one foot in front of the other, careful to keep his distance and not make a sound - in what condition was he going to find her?

When the man in front of him finally stopped and the light of his torch fell into the cell next to him, Daryl had to hold in his sigh of relief. Carol was sitting against the far wall of the bare cell on her heels, glaring at her keeper with baleful eyes. She looked pale and thin in the dim light, but apart from the ugly bruise on her temple where the blow that had knocked her out had hit her, and the cut at its center, he didn’t see any major injuries.

“Come up here, you’re wanted upstairs. Your ultimatum’s up.”

The man’s voice stirred something inside Daryl, but he couldn’t have said what it was. Maybe he had heard him on the battlefield a few days earlier. For a moment Daryl thought he was hearing doubt in his voice, but he wasn’t certain – and in any case, it didn’t matter. He waited for the man to pull out the ring on which he was keeping the cell keys and insert the right key – and the second he did, Daryl pulled the dagger from his belt, rushed the man from behind, and rammed his dagger into the man’s shoulder as he turned around to cast a bewildered look behind him at the sound of Daryl’s footsteps. The man dropped his torch, but it kept flickering on the ground, its fitful light casting dancing shadows on the walls of the cell and the hallway - and on the face of the man searching the empty hallway for his attacker.

Daryl froze when he saw his eyes.

.-.

Carl and Enid watched from afar as the warband started attacking the keep. The archers had wound rags around the tips of their arrows and now drenched them in the liquid Daryl had provided. After nocking them very carefully, they waited in line to dip their arrow tips with the drenched rags into a small fire carefully contained by a circle of stones, lighting them up. At their commanding officer’s order, they launched their flaming arrows at the guards huddling around the fire basket in the gate and those patrolling the battlements and the towers - an attack that looked as beautiful as a meteor shower but was still deadly for a handful of the keep’s guards. Looking at Enid, Carl asked the obvious question.

“Why did Michonne and Abraham and Daryl leave? Michonne is your lady, and Abraham is the leader of her warband, he should be commanding them right now for this attack. Rosita may be meeting a smaller group she’s going to lead – but Michonne? Abraham? How can they not be here during an attack?”

“Maybe they’re just doing something over there toward the keep and will be back any minute?” Enid suggested.

“Good idea – let’s get over there and see if we find them – and if we don’t, let’s see if anyone is even inside that keep anymore.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence and gore

Daryl stood frozen, his dagger stuck in the man’s shoulder, his blood roaring in his ears, his hands numb with shock. At the other end of what seemed to be a narrowing dark tunnel, he saw Carol getting up and approaching the cell door, eyes wide and knowing.

That voice.

Those eyes.

He knew this man.

He had known the boy.

“Merle?”

His voice was no more than a whisper, forced through his constricting throat, just loud enough for the other to hear, and he looked adequately spooked at hearing someone talking to him in an empty corridor after having been attacked out of thin air.

The man raised both hands, his left already covered in the blood running down from the shoulder wound Daryl had just inflicted, and swung them left and right in front of him - until they encountered Daryl’s left shoulder, and then his face.

Without hesitation, and seemingly without being the least bit surprised at finding resistance where he couldn’t see anything in the hallway, the man - who was taller and heavier than Daryl - started clawing at Daryl’s eyes and mouth, pushing him into the bars of the cell door and bringing up one knee in a vicious jab, hoping to catch Daryl in the groin but instead hitting his left thigh, making his healing arrow wound throb.

Daryl caught hold of the knife in the man’s shoulder and started twisting it in an attempt to get him to let go of him and move back, but was torn by guilt and doubt when the other started howling in pain.  _ If this is truly my brother, how can I hurt him like this? _ Yet the man who might be his brother, but had no such reservations, was fighting him with all he had, fighting to kill, and he could hardly allow himself to get killed just because he’d become nostalgic.

He felt as if his head was being twisted off his neck as one large, calloused hand ground his face into the bars so hard that he could feel his front teeth cutting his lips, and taste the blood seeping into his mouth.

“No!” he managed to gasp as the man’s other hand that had not been ravaging Daryl’s face now found his throat and started cutting off his air supply even as he continued shoving him into the cell door with one shoulder grinding into his chest. He hoped that spells that were only voiced in thought would work as well as if he were able to cast them out loud. Desperately fighting for the level of concentration he needed to cast a spell even in combat, he closed his eyes for a moment and tried to find the quiet place that he went to for casting in a fight.

_ A fireplace with flames dancing in it, their heat enveloping him, their beauty not yet spelling danger to him. Some brightly painted wooden toys strewn across the rug in front of it. A woman’s voice, telling him she was making dinner now. A woman’s hand, caressing the crown of his head as she set down a mug of warm milk for him. _

The magic filled him and the spell burst out of him, voice or no voice, a shower of sparks hitting the man who might be his long-lost brother whom he had believed lost for twenty years, the force of the spell driving him away from Daryl and into the opposite wall. Gasping for air, reeling from lack of oxygen and the force of the spell hitting his own chest and hurling him back into the door of Carol’s cell, Daryl felt around for the key in the lock behind his back with one hand and began to turn it even as he slapped out the magical flames consuming his shirt with the other, panting with panic.

Before he could open the cell door, however, the man who might be his brother Merle came toward him again, going by the sound of the key screeching in the lock, and the large, groping hands found him once more. Daryl let go of the key and instead tried to grab the dagger still sticking out of the other man’s shoulder, but his potential brother’s reach was greater and he started pummeling Daryl with his fists and feet even as the last nests of glowing sparks on his clothes were dying.

Daryl heard sounds approaching and hoped that at least Carol would get away before whoever was coming down reached them. She needed to get out, that was all he was asking for. She couldn’t die here at the hands of the psychopath leading this group. Once his spell wore off, they would see that they had caught the mage they wanted even without her help, and maybe that would be enough to appease them.

Enough to let Carol get away without seeking retribution.

The words of another spell flared up in his mind, he felt the magic surging inside him, and a wild gust of wind threw over the taller, heavier man who pulled him along as he fell. They both fell away from the cell door, hitting the floor near the flickering torch, and Daryl flinched back from the flames. Carol, who had already been waiting for the cell door to open, instantly reached out between the bars, turned the key in its lock all the way, pushed open the door and emerged into the hallway, turning toward the one visible man twisting on the ground. She was well aware of who he had to be fighting and was careful not to hurt Daryl by accident as she approached the two.

Footsteps were coming toward them from the direction of the tower.

Daryl, seeing her get closer, shook his head and tried to get away from the hand closing around his throat once again. “Don’t,” he croaked, black spots swarming in front of his eyes. “Get out, don’t try … help.” Fighting for every word now, wheezing as he struggled to breathe. “You’re unarmed ... someone’s coming, they … kill you.” He managed to gasp in a lungful of air for one last word. “Go!”

There was a scuffing sound at the dark end of the hallway, and when he managed to look, his head and shoulders grinding against the stone floor, he was convinced that he was on his final way out. There, behind clouds of black dots, stood Carl and Michonne’s maid who had tried to assassinate him on the stairs as he’d been leaving that morning, both staring at the man on the ground and at Carol towering above him. 

He had to be hallucinating. These two couldn’t be here.

Then Carl came closer, his eyes on the man now kneeling on Daryl’s chest, seemingly in thin air, and he slowly raised his hand, holding out a sword to Carol.

.-.

Michonne pushed through the door as it started swinging shut again, holding one hand out to stop it briefly and give the others time to file in after her. The noise and heat of the hall felt stifling after the cold, quiet night outside, and she had to adjust for a moment before she was able to pick out her targets.

“Are you there?” she whispered over her shoulder, and got confirmation both from Abraham and from Rosita. “I take the leader. Abraham, you take out those on his right, and Rosita, you take the ones sitting on his left. We do as many as we can before they wise up, then we team up at the center and protect each other’s backs. Daryl’s spell should be good for a few more minutes, but I want to be at the center when it expires, so be quick. Ready?”

The three of them moved into the hall, weapons in attack positions, and Michonne stared at the man on the ornately carved chair that Daryl had mentioned. He had short dark hair, slicked back from his face, and a short, scruffy beard peppered with gray. He was fondling a woman sitting on his lap while one of his men was looking on with a morose face - was this guy taking the wives or girlfriends of his men for himself?

The man on the thronelike chair raised his goblet and started tipping it over the woman, trickling red wine over her bare skin - and then started licking it off. Michonne shuddered in disgust - and in sympathy when she noticed the expression on the woman’s face.

“Try to spare the women,” she mumbled under her breath, making sure the others were still right next to her and within hearing distance. ”Daryl mentioned slaves when he first told me about them. I think it’s safe to assume they’re not here willingly.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”

She moved in toward the leader, katana raised high over her shoulder, and took aim. The blade sang when she sliced down, sinking it deep into the man without touching a hair on the woman’s head. When blood started spraying out of the cut that had almost separated the man’s upper right quadrant from the rest of his body, the woman started screaming. 

The man was still sitting upright in his chair, one hand on her breast, fingers slack, while the hand holding the wine goblet had fallen in death, landing on the woman’s thighs. The goblet was rolling across the floor now, trailing some of the spilled wine in its wake. Staring at the blood pooling in the hollow at the base of the man’s neck, the woman scrabbled out from under his lifeless hands, still screaming and futilely wiping at his blood on her dress.

The room turned into a scene straight from a nightmare. Stab wounds oozing blood appeared out of nowhere on the men sitting to the left and right of the leader at an alarming speed, Michonne saw. Rosita and Abraham were doing their best to take out as many of them as they could while everyone was still stunned by what was happening. 

She herself whirled around to take on the men who were sitting against the wall behind the leader and moving through the room instead of sitting at one of the tables. The noise inside the hall drowned out the sound of fighting that was now rising from the courtyard and the battlements, as well as the rattle of the portcullis coming down and the creak of the drawbridge being pulled up as the army outside the keep’s walls started its attack. 

This was it. They would have to win to get out again, or they would all die in here.

.-.

With Daryl almost blacking out from lack of oxygen and suffering from the backlash of his spells, the man managed to wrench himself from Daryl’s grip. He got in another lucky kick at Daryl’s leg as he rose, and while Carol was still staring at the blood on the man’s hands, wondering if some or all of it was Daryl’s, and worried about what he had done since Daryl was not keeping him from getting up -  _ would he become visible at once if he died or would the spell still remain in effect? _ -, he reached out and wrenched the sword from Carl’s hand. Pushing away the boy and the girl behind him, he started stumbling down the hallway and toward the tower staircase leading up to the main floor with on last terrified glance backward, at the invisible being that had attacked him, supporting himself with one hand against the wall.

Carl wanted to follow, but Enid put out one hand to stop him. “You don’t have a weapon,” she reminded him, voice shaking with delayed fear. He had run right past her, dripping blood, a sword in his hand. He could have run her through with it just for fun if he’d wanted to. “Let’s help Carol instead.”

Carol, meanwhile, was kneeling on the floor by now, hands out, searching for Daryl. He had to be close, she knew, but something was wrong. She could hear him moaning softly, and then one of her hands hit his boot.

“Daryl, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing big, just a few new burns and bruises - but he hit my leg when he kicked me, I’ll need help to get up. Wait.” She heard a few murmured words, and then he appeared on the floor in front of her, clutching his left leg, blood soaking into the fabric of his pants and welling out between his fingers. Carol stared at the blood in shock and Daryl remembered that he’d only been hit by the arrow after she had been struck unconscious - she hadn’t known he was injured.

“We need to catch him, I need this man.” His voice sounded urgent. “There’s something I gotta ask him.”

He held out one hand and Carol grabbed it and pulled him up with her as she rose from her crouch. Daryl bent back down to pick up the sputtering torch. Together, they turned toward Carl and Enid. 

“What are you doing here?” Daryl asked sternly as he started limping down the hallway. “You two shouldn’t be here. Carol, you need to get this man for me before someone up there kills him, I’m not fast enough. I’ll get Morgan, I know where he’s being kept. I’ll meet you outside.” He handed his dagger to Carol, still coated in the blood of the man he believed to be his brother. “Please - I need him alive.”

She nodded, accepting the weapon, and they parted ways at the next intersection, with Carol preceding Carl and Enid up the dimly lit tower stairs and Daryl making his way back to the cell in which Morgan was still being held.

.-.

Merle heard sounds of fighting even before he reached the main floor again, and decided that this was a lost cause. He’d been having serious doubts about his company for a while now, and he was certainly not about to die for these people - the only one who deserved to die for Negan was Negan himself. Not hesitating even for a moment, he turned not toward the hall but toward the keep’s main entrance, where he found that the guards had left their posts.

“Ain’t gonna complain,” he mumbled to himself as he opened one of the massive doors to peer out into the courtyard. He saw archers up on the battlements and heard sounds of fighting from outside the walls and finally realized that it wasn’t just a few idiots who had decided to infiltrate the keep and murder a handful of people, but a full-blown, organized attack, maybe even by a full-sized warband.

_ The keep at the ford. _

_ The mage in the Red robes. Had he just fought the mage in the Red robes? The mage called Daryl? _

On closer inspection, the guards in the shelter housing the portcullis and bridge wheel and pulley arrangements seemed to have dematerialized as well - they had probably joined the archers up on the battlements since the bridge was up and the portcullis down anyway and no more enemies could get in for the time being. Merle rushed across the courtyard and started inspecting the crank for the bridge and the one for the portcullis. He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible - there was no way he was getting caught by the attackers, for he was pretty sure he knew what they had in mind as punishment. Facing an execution squad didn’t sound too great when you were going to be the one doing the facing.

.-.

They hadn’t become visible again all at once, as if someone - Daryl? - had snapped his fingers, but gradually, and by that time, most of the people in the room had been dead or dying already. In the end, only the scantily clad women and three scared guards were left, and they didn’t seem too heartbroken over the carnage that Michonne, Abraham, and Rosita had wrought in here. With Daryl’s spell protecting them nearly to the very end, they had all gotten away with minor nicks and cuts that their opponents - taken by surprise, inebriated, and frightened - had inflicted more by accident than by design.

When Michonne approached them to explain who she was, and why they had come, the women were all relieved and happy, grateful to be free of these men who had treated them like commodities. Together, they all made their way back out of the keep to take care of any remaining defenders outside before leaving the keep to return home.

As she entered the courtyard and took a lungful of the fresh, clean night air, Michonne saw a figure making its stealthy way toward the house in which the cranks for the bridge and the portcullis would be, and disappear in the thick shadows surrounding it. “You take care of the archers up there,” she hissed at the others, pointing up at the battlements where the defenders were ducking the arrows of her attacking warband. Without waiting for an answer, she quickly followed the lonesome figure into the darkness.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, warning for violence and gore, plus burns and choking

Limping out into the courtyard, which was a glaring contrast to the silence that had fallen over the inside of the keep, Daryl looked at the man next to him. The darkness was hiding, for now, what horrors he had endured back in that dungeon, and he was doing his best to keep up with Daryl despite the pain of his wounds and being weakened by hunger and thirst. 

“Fighting inside the keep’s already over. Think you can find a weapon and help us outside?” He pointed up at the battlements where a number of archers were still keeping the attackers from placing the planks they had brought along on the edge of the moat so they could get across it, squeeze through behind the raised drawbridge, and start climbing the portcullis to get over it. Apparently they were unaware that all they were doing was drawing out the inevitable since everyone on the ground had already either surrendered or been overwhelmed by the small party that had made it inside.

Morgan nodded and approached a limp body several feet away to search for a weapon while Daryl now noticed a group of people gathered a short distance from the shelter where he assumed the cranks for the bridge and the portcullis would be. A moment later, a screeching noise confirmed his suspicions as the bridge began to lower. Two figures separated from the waiting group, moving toward the stairwells leading up to the battlements to take on the archers up there in hand to hand combat, while the third - Michonne? He saw long, swinging hair, so it had to be Michonne - made her way toward the crankhouse.

At a scraping sound, he looked around himself and saw someone coming at him with bared teeth and hatred in his eyes. He raised one hand without even thinking. The spell flashed through his mind, and a crackling, blazing red fireball sprang to life on his outstretched palm, barrelled into the man and set his clothes on fire. He dropped the stone he’d been holding and started slapping at the flames, screaming.

Morgan, who had meanwhile found a halberd, now moved in on the man who started scrabbling away, his hands searching the ground for a new weapon.

.-.

Carol made sure that Carl and Enid were well hidden behind a stack of rotting wine casks to the right of the gate before she sneaked up on the man leaning over the crank for the portcullis, the slick knife in her hand. A quick look around the courtyard had shown her that they needed the bridge down and the portcullis up so the rest of their people could join the fight - so she let him continue until he had lowered the bridge and was beginning to turn the crank for the portcullis. The attackers could just roll in under it once it was partially raised and their men were across the moat, while the bridge had been essential.

Taking one final step toward the man, she raised the knife, still wet with his own blood - but the moment it was pointing downward, it slid out of her fingers and clattered to the flagstones covering the floor.

The man whirled around and his eyes widened as he recognized her. HIs surprise didn’t keep him from attacking immediately, however, while she was still reaching down to pick up the knife again.

He jumped her, getting in a punch to her kidney that had her folding up in pain, and while she was down, he moved in behind her and hooked his good arm around her neck, blood still dripping from the other one. His breath was loud in her ears as he snarled, “We’re leavin’ now, we’re not waitin’ on yer precious friend.” He stank of sweat and wine, and she imagined her skin crawling with revulsion as he held her to him, keeping her from wriggling out of his grip.

Walking backward, he dragged her out into the open and toward the gate, still blocked by the portcullis, careful to stay in the shadows at the foot of the wall so nobody would see them escape. His arm was still firmly cutting off Carol’s air supply and keeping her from shouting out to the dark figure now emerging from the shadows near the front door of the keep - Michonne, she thought, as the moonlight briefly illuminated her swinging braids and the small beads at their tips. She was closely followed by Rosita and Abraham, whose faces stood out more clearly in the darkness, and they started making their way toward the crank house to give the warband waiting outside access to the keep.

Fighting for what little air still made it through her windpipe, Carol watched in desperation as Michonne, who clearly hadn’t seen them heading for the gate, entered the small house containing the cranks for the bridge and the portcullis - and then she heard the screech of the crank and the shuddering crack as the portcullis slowly started rising again, further opening up their escape route from the keep.

The fire basket for the guards stood deserted, she saw as the man dragged her into the gatehouse and toward the bridge. Black dots were swarming through her field of vision and her head was pounding as he forced her to duck under the portcullis, making it hard to concentrate. She had to fight to find her footing every two or three steps because the man dragging her along didn’t care that she was scrambling along backward while constantly falling over his feet, after suffering a head injury, followed by days of not sleeping, eating, or drinking enough, and getting beaten and degraded on top of all that.

Where were the others, either from outside or inside the keep? Had the attackers lined up along the moat even realized that the bridge had come down? Were Michonne and the others already following them out? Would any of them be in time to keep this man from dragging her off into the darkness with him until he could kill her once they were out of danger, a hostage that he no longer needed and that would only attempt to hinder his escape?

.-.

Looking down at his hand, Daryl looked at the fresh circular burn, surrounded by charred, blistered, and blackened skin, that was already beginning to weep wound fluid, and then glanced back toward the exit. The bridge was down by now and the portcullis was slowly rising - Michonne was letting in her troops. He guessed that he could already fit through the gap, and he really wanted his crossbow so he wouldn’t have to depend on spells any longer, so he rushed across the courtyard, his leg screaming with every lurching step, and ducked out under the portcullis as it continued rising upward, squealing, each of the spikes pointing down at him large enough on its own to kill him. Tearing his eyes from the rusty tips, he forced his aching body to move forward and to freedom.

He saw two dark figures ahead of him, moving toward the bridge, apparently supporting each other as they lurched along, and wondered who they might be. With a glance at the fire basket glowing dimly in the darkness he considered the possibility that they might be the guards who had been stationed here - in which case it would be good to catch up to them and stop them. 

Catching his breath for a moment, he checked whether his remaining knives were still in their sheats and then straightened up, ready to go on. He felt blood running down his leg and cursed himself for moving too slowly to avoid the kick that had opened the wound again.

Panting, he looked over his shoulder and then out toward the moat, wondering where Carol and the man who might be his brother had disappeared to. When he looked out over the bridge again, the two staggering figures had disappeared into the waning darkness, which spurred him into motion. Limping toward the bridge, he strained to find them, but even with the horizon beyond the keep’s walls slowly getting brighter at last with the coming sunrise it was still too dark to see beyond the end of the bridge.

.-.

When Rosita stepped out into the courtyard again once the portcullis was fully raised, preparing to rush back into the keep to get out the women they had freed now that the fight in the courtyard was over, she found herself facing two shadowy figures who were too slight and short to be members of the group they were routing.

“Halt! Identify yourselves!” She raised her sword, ready to run it through them the second they proved to be a threat, but at that moment the wind tore through the cloud cover and the moonlight fell into the courtyard - and onto the faces of Carl and Enid, who were staring at her with wide eyes, pale with fear, hands raised in surrender.

Stunned, Rosita lowered her sword again. “How -” She felt rather than saw Michonne stepping up from behind and asked, “Did you know they were coming along?” The beads in Michonne’s braids made a soft, clinking noise as she shook her head wordlessly. Voice shaking with the realization of what she had been prepared to do to these two children, Rosita hissed, “You could have been killed, with none of us even aware that you’re here! What have you been doing?”

Enid was the first to find her voice again. She very slowly lowered her hands and stepped forward. “Daryl’s freed Carol, and then he sent her after some man he needs alive, one of the bad guys. She must be out here with him somewhere, she’s no longer in the keep, we came out with her, but then she told us to hide behind those barrels.” She pointed at the stack.

Abraham stepped out of the shadows, startling the two children badly. “Where’s my man? Is he free as well? And do we know which one it is?”

This time it was Carl who answered, his voice high and excited. “He’s called Morgan, Daryl told Carol he would get him and then follow her out. Carol went in here because someone was fiddling with the cranks, but then we ducked when someone came out of the keep -” He looked at Michonne. “- that was you, I think, and by the time we looked for Carol again, she was gone, and the man she was following was gone as well, and you -” directed at Abraham and Rosita “- were going into the wall tower, and Michonne was going for the crank.”

Michonne allowed a frustrated sigh to escape her. Abraham started walking toward the keep, but stopped after two steps. “Did you see Daryl and Morgan come out?”

Both Carl and Enid, unaware that they had missed Daryl passing them while they had been ducking down behind the barrels and Morgan was still looking for stray bandits in the courtyard, shook their heads, and Abraham continued walking. He was quickly hidden by the shadows again as a new bank of clouds moved in front of the moon.

.-.

Glenn was still debating whether or not he should cross the bridge and duck into the courtyard under the rising portcullis when he saw two figures staggering toward him from the shadows of the gate. At first glance they seemed to be supporting each other, but something about them seemed off, somehow. One of them didn’t seem to be …  _ walking forward _ ?

Hidden behind a clump of high grass, he watched as the two figures stepped off the bridge on the near side of the moat and began moving off toward his left. And as they moved off to the side, he saw that he’d been right - the person in the lead was dragging the other one along backwards, with an arm around their neck. Despite the hint of dawn on the horizon he was unable to make out their faces at this distance.

Very suspicious now, Glenn felt for his knives and then rose, careful not to touch the dry grass so it wouldn’t rustle and give him away, and started following the two figures, always keeping his distance from them and ducking whenever they stopped and the leader - a man, definitely a man, going by his bulky build - looked around to make sure nobody was following them.

At some distance from the keep, they came upon a copse of trees similar to the one southeast of the keep’s drawbridge where the group that had infiltrated the keep had hidden their gear, and Glenn saw an opportunity to get in closer to the two people he was stalking. When he peered around one of the trees hiding him, Glenn saw that the man who had been leading was now holding the other, slighter person against a tree and pushing something into their mouth, probably to keep the slighter one from shouting for help.

With his weight still holding the other person against the tree, the man then got a length of rope out from under his tunic and started winding it around his … hostage?

Yes, this was definitely the man gagging and tying up his hostage so the hostage couldn’t call or run for help, Glenn realized. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was still nearly transparent, with Daryl’s spell only beginning to wear off, and this helped him make one of his most important decisions ever, completely forgetting that he had never had combat training in his life.

Clearly, this was one of the people who had kept the slaves Daryl and Carol had freed, had attacked them at the cave, had murdered a group of travelers at the bridge, and abducted Carol and two other members of Michonne’s warband, killing one of them. Whatever this man was planning, whoever the other person might be, this couldn’t be good.

And Glenn was the only one who could stop him.

Reaching for a hefty fallen branch at his feet, Glenn stepped out from behind his tree, rushed toward the man and knocked him out with the branch just as he was turning around, a furious look on his face, to see what was going on behind him.

He dropped to the ground like a felled tree, his eyes rolling up in their sockets, and then Glenn found himself standing in front of Carol, tied against the tree and gagged with what looked like a sock.


	31. Chapter 31

Just a few more steps, and then Daryl was outside and remembered Glenn and the daggers he was carrying. “Glenn!” Two cautious steps forward. “Glenn!” No answer. One more step.  “Glenn, this is me, Daryl, are you still -” Looking around, he saw the light on the horizon, the sky getting brighter already right above him, but he didn’t see Glenn. He regretted having to unravel the spell for himself in the dungeon - this had robbed him of his only way of assessing how visible his companions had become by now.

The fight for the battlements, he saw, was almost won. Nearly all members of the warband that had been waiting beyond the moat had meanwhile entered the keep and climbed the stairs to take out the defenders in hand to hand combat. Those who had surrendered were already being brought out one by one, hands tied behind their backs, bruised, some of them bleeding, but alive.

There was no sign of Carol, no sign of … maybe-Merle, and no sign of Glenn.

His stomach started churning in fear as the pain in his thigh and chest faded into the background. Holding out his right hand, ready to instantly cast a defensive spell, he slowly turned around again amid the high grass, looking about for a sign of any of them.

And then, from a small stand of trees in the middle distance to his right, he saw a figure running toward him, waving one arm and yelling something that he didn’t understand over the roar in his ears. He started limping toward the figure, his breath coming in gasps by now, with spots dancing in front of his eyes, obscuring the sky which was rapidly getting brighter now, with a clear winter day dawning.

It was Glenn, he saw as the figure kept coming closer, closer, still waving and yelling, Glenn, fully visible again, since by now the spell had apparently worn off for everyone. Daryl also started running toward his … friend. He was almost surprised at finding that he considered Glenn a friend after just a few weeks of being in his company - but the re was no denying that he was a kind and decent man who cared deeply for the people around him and had put his trust in Daryl from the day they’d met which, Daryl felt, was a sign of Glenn himself being very open and honest. And of course, despite having no training at all, he had been willing to come here tonight and fight with him for Carol’s life. What more could you ask of a friend?  He stumbled, and fought to keep his balance.

“No, don’t fall, you’ve gotta be -” The words rushed out breathlessly as Glenn reached out to catch Daryl and help him stay on his feet. “You’ve got to come with me, one of them’s over there, Carol’s guarding him, he was trying to - Daryl, what happened to you ?” Glenn interrupted himself in mid-sentence and looked him over. “Wow, has a clutch of wyrm hatchlings used you to practise breathing fire? And you’re bleeding again! You look terrible!”

Daryl imagined that he would, having rolled through mouse droppings and dust in the keep in a fight to the death, been nearly strangled twice, covered in blood both from himself and his enemy, and cut, thrown into walls, and burned, by his own spells. He waved it off. “I  guess I do, but never mind. I need my weapons, I ain’t good for too many spells anymore. And where’s Carol ?”

Glenn looked confused as he followed Daryl toward the copse where their weapons were hidden. “ Back there in that other stand of trees, with the guy I knocked out .”

Daryl stopped in his tracks and stared at Glenn. “You knocked someone out who was with Carol? Using what? You only had your knives?”

Vaguely gesturing over his shoulder, Glenn explained that he’d found a thick branch among the trees and had used it to hit the man who had captured Carol over the head -

“Captured Carol?” Daryl, who had been leaning down to  brush aside the layer of leaves hiding his crossbow and  staff, froze and stared up at Glenn. This was getting worse all the time. “How did you forget to mention that someone took her prisoner?” He grabbed his weapon and staff. “Let’s go back and get her then.”

“But -,” Glenn protested, rushing after him. “She’s no longer … I mean, I knocked him out, and undid the rope tying her to that tree, and took out the gag -”

Daryl whirled on him. “He _tied and_ _gagged_ her?” His eyes were all but glowing with anger now. “Is she hurt?”

“Well, that guy dragged her around by the neck, and backwards, so I guess her neck hurts and it must have been uncomfortable, but physically, she’s … she has a few bruises, and a cut on her temple, and she looks exhausted and malnourished, but apart from that …” He rushed on to follow Daryl who had set out once more. Under his breath, he muttered, “You look just as bad as her,” but made sure that Daryl wouldn’t hear him. Looking from the keep to the trees, closer now than they had been when they had reunited, he called out, “Wait, they’re over there!” Passing Daryl, he led the way.

Daryl was almost shocked when he felt the first tendrils of warmth as the light of the sun rising over the horizon fell upon his back as they approached the copse of trees southwest of the keep. They had been fighting and running through the night without pause, and he was aching from head to toe. His hands were raw from burning himself, from casting spells, from falling onto gravel. Under his clothes, he was bleeding from cuts and burns and stab wounds inflicted by his own spells. His eyes felt as if someone had strewn dust into them, his eyelids scraping across them like sandpaper. His scratches and bruises from the fight in the dungeons were burning like fire.

Looking over his shoulder toward the keep, he saw more people coming out into the first light of the sun now, with the members of Michonne’s warband leading their prisoners along. He thought he could tell which of the faraway figures was Michonne by her brighter armor and long, braided hair. Abraham’s head looked like a match just catching fire in the sunlight. He couldn’t make out Rosita and hoped that she was okay as well - but all in all the group that had taken on the bandits in the great hall seemed to have done well, from what he could see.

When he looked forward again, he saw that they had almost reached the first scraggly trees, and used his staff to bend aside some leafless twigs that were in his way. Glenn, still two steps ahead of him, led him toward the center of the small stand of trees, where a lean, lithe figure was standing watch over the man from the dungeon lying on the ground, unconscious, chest rising and falling slowly, a bump and a large bruise on his temple. With a glance at Daryl over his shoulder, Glenn stepped aside to allow the mage to pass him unhindered. The obvious fear, relief, and love on the man’s face as he looked upon the warrior guarding their captive was heart wrenching.

Daryl’s whole body ached as he made his way toward Carol, stopping at arm’s length from her. She was dirty and spattered with blood, there were bruises on her face and hands, several shallow cuts to her arms, but even though she wasn’t wearing her armor anymore, she seemed to have avoided major injuries. He let out a small sigh of relief and raised his burned right hand, almost touching the bruise on her temple - his skin was so close to touching hers that she could feel his body heat on her face. His fingers were trembling.

“You okay?”

Her eyes roamed over him - dirty, bruised, bleeding, fresh raw wounds and burns visible on his hands and neck, dark gray clothes covered in dirt and cobwebs and blood, swaying on his feet, barely able to keep his eyes open, yet he cared for none of that. He steadied himself against one of the willowy trees, his eyes drinking her in, the barely understood joy of seeing her alive and more or less well flickering across his tired face.

She nodded, and asked back, “You?”

His answering nod was hardly noticeable. Even though they had won, he looked utterly beaten and defeated. Yet when they set out for the camp where they had left their horses and gear behind after joining the rest of the warband again, with Glenn and Carol dragging along her unconscious interrogator, he walked next to her, never breaking stride.

.-.

Never before had he been taken prisoner, and never before had he surrendered to an enemy - but he was relieved to have been taken this time. Even if “his” side had won, he was certain that he would have wanted to get away from them, and Negan wasn’t the kind to just let you go when you decided to leave. A handful of men had tried while Merle had been with him, and he would not have wished their fates on his worst enemies.

He had the cell to himself, with a rough bed, a pillow, a blanket. A table for his food and water. A covered pail for his waste. A window with a hide stretched across it against the cold. Better than anything they had offered their own prisoners, or the girls they had kept, or even some of their own men when they had been in disgrace and had to work their way back up again. While he assumed that he was going to be punished for the role he had played in Negan’s group, he was also certain that he would not be executed - execution seemed out of character for the Lady of this keep. It was her dungeon he was being held in, after all, and he had been treated with decency and respect ever since waking up in this cell after getting knocked out outside the keep.

He heard a sound in the hallway outside and looked up.

It was the mage.

The mage in the red robe, the one the guard had called by his baby brother’s name that day in the courtyard, was standing in front of his door, leaning on his staff. A bandage peeked out over the collar of his shirt, and both of his hands were bandaged as well. Apparently, he had been heavily involved in last night’s fight. When he took another step toward the cell door, he seemed to be limping, favoring his left leg and using his staff for support, the way he had in the keep’s courtyard the day Merle had first seen him a few days before. Was he injured, or was this a permanent disability?

His eyes, like his baby brother’s, were a bright blue, like the summer sky. His shoulders seemed too wide - but then again, his brother had only been seven years old when their house had burned down, so obviously he would not have been built like that yet. The mage’s hair was slightly darker than his brother’s had been, but he knew that hair color could change as children grew into adults, and it wasn’t too far off. He seemed to be the right age.

And his name was Daryl.

Now the mage raised his free hand to place it on the cell door’s bars, as if resting it there. The wide sleeve of his red robe slid down, exposing a scarred forearm. The mage hastily pulled his sleeve back up again, far enough for its edge to rest on the bandage on his hand so it wouldn’t slide back down again.

_ Burn scars. _

The blue eyes caught Merle’s eyes widening, his breath catching.

“What’s your name?”

Merle’s head rang with the mage’s tired, dark voice. Would  _ his _ Daryl sound like this as an adult? He searched the bruised face, the blue eyes, the man’s stance for hints, and found apprehension in his look, tension in the way he held himself.

Merle was the one locked in a cell, and the mage was the one asking questions and calling shots - yet the mage outside his cell was the one who was afraid of the answer Merle would give him. He held the blue eyes for a moment longer, trying to ignore the bruises and bandages, the physical pain this man was in.

His heart was certain already, and his heart ached with his brother’s pain.

_ I kicked him. I choked him. I did this. _

“Merle.”

The bruised, scabbed fingers tightened around the bars of the cell door for support as the mage exhaled forcefully and his face went expressionless for a moment before he recovered. His adam’s apple jumped in his throat as he swallowed, trying to find his voice again.

“How old are you?”

Merle gave him his age, and the mage went pale. Merle’s heartbeat was drowning out all other sounds - except for the voice asking one final question. His brother’s voice. The voice of the baby brother he had believed dead for twenty years, killed in the fire that had taken his home and his parents from him.

“What happened to your family?”

Time seemed to have stopped as Merle slowly moved toward the door, feeling like a puppet performing choreographed movements that he didn’t get to choose, a little as if he were watching himself from outside. He reached the cell door, and raised one hand to gently touch the fingers curled around its bars. They felt cold to his touch, and they were trembling. The mage tensed up, but did not try to pull his hand away.

“My parents are dead. They died when our house caught fire twenty years ago, and I thought my younger brother had died as well that night.”

The mage’s face went slack as his eyes filled with tears. Merle grabbed his hand through the bars and regretted it immediately when he felt the mage flinch with pain.

“But over the past few days, since spying on this keep and hearing a guard calling a red robed mage by my brother’s name, I have come to think that Daryl might be alive, that someone rescued him either before or after I came back from the inn with the ale for our father, and that he wasn’t ... too badly injured … in the fire.” Merle licked his dry lips. “Is my brother … alive?”

The mage seemed to have stopped breathing. A ray of sunlight hit his eyes through the window set high into the wall of Merle’s cell behind his back, and as he blinked, a single tear spilled over and started running down his cheek, glinting in the light as he reached for his sleeve once more to pull it down, purposely revealing the old burn scars on his arm.

“I thought you were dead,” Merle whispered, his other hand snaking out through the bars and clutching Daryl’s right shoulder. He felt the bandage under his fingers whose upper edge was visible above Daryl’s shirt collar and wondered what else the robes were hiding in the way of punishments for last night’s battle. At least this touch didn’t seem to hurt Daryl even more - the injury itself seemed to be located somewhere else. “I thought you had died with them.  _ Did _ they die that night?”

Daryl nodded silently, squashing any hope and fears Merle might have had of either seeing his parents again, or learning that he had missed seeing them again by just a handful of years, months, or even weeks. Daryl could hardly hear Merle anymore over the roar in his ears, his furious heartbeat, the thundering silence echoing in his mind, the words he kept repeating to himself soundlessly. He was hardly able to breathe against the weight on his chest.

_ My brother is alive. My brother Merle is alive. _

Leaning his staff against the wall, he reached into a pocket of his red robe and pulled out a single key.

He had known.

He had come down here to confirm what his heart already knew, free his brother, and give him the chance he deserved.

Merle watched him insert the key into the lock with trembling fingers and then step back away from the door, sliding out of Merle’s grasp.

Daryl was injured. There were visible bruises on him, Merle had felt and seen bandages under his robes, and he was limping and relying on support to walk, either because of an injury or permanently. There was probably little Daryl could do, Merle thought, to keep him from escaping now, short of striking him down with a spell that would injure him further.

Daryl had come down here, alone, unarmed, defenseless, injured, in pain, to free a man who had been his enemy in last night’s fight - who had fought to the death even after realizing who he had to be, and had proceeded to try to abduct Carol as soon as he was alone with her.

He had come down here trusting his brother not to harm him.

Daryl drew a shuddering breath as he watched his brother make his decision.

Merle slowly pushed open the cell door and stepped out into the corridor and up to his baby brother.


End file.
